You can't sell an item at $1 when you pay $1000 for it.
My Posts
4/12/2013
Surprised no one has figured out Bitcoins yet
Banks take in deposits in dollars, say $100 they only have to pay out $100 USD when the customer wants his money back. Banks are required to keep 10% of the deposits. The rest they lend out in loans. If they need more than 10% on any given day, the Federal Reserve gives them a short-term loan. So banks never run out of money. It has happened a few times, but with FDIC insurance the depositors get all their money back.
MTGOX claims to trade 80% of all bit coin trades. The problem is when they sell Bitcoins they need to keep 100% of the sales as reserves. They do charge fees, but the fees alone probably don't cover their overhead and salaries. So even it Bitcoins remained at a stable price they probably couldn't refund customers at 100%.
Since Bitcoins fluctuate in price, that's what going to jam MTGOX up. They started out selling Bitcoins at just a few pennies. Lately Bitcoins have been over $100. It's difficult to sell a product for a few dollars and buy it back for hundreds. That's impossible. Only way they can stay afloat is to constantly bring in new customers paying ever increasing prices.
Normally that business model is called a Ponzi scheme.
The only other thing that could save the day is Bitcoin buyers actually buy goods and services from other customers but it looks like that's a small percentage of Bitcoins.
1/2/2014
BitCoin = Fail
Study
Gresham's Law
However, the greatest threat to BitCoins is it's own success. The more valuable it becomes, the more hackers will come after it. It's been hacked, it will be again.
2/8/2014
Who has the hot potato last
There's the optimistic view
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...l#.UvcT61OScjV
Then there is the technical issues
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...l#.UvcT_VOScjW
But the $250 drop this week. As I said before, MTGOX has to keep market stability. They can, if buyers outpace sellers. However, if sellers overwhelm buyers, MTGOX has to draw against their dollar balances. Since Bitcoin has skyrocketed, MTGOX has too little cash to cover Bitcoins purchased at $.10 to $600 and have to redeem at $700-1100.
Same thing happened to the US Treasury in the 60-70's when they couldn't redeem dollars for gold fast enough. This is Bitcoin's problem.
In a stable market, all works well. In an extremely volatile market great fortunes and and poverty can be the result.
Market imbalance is one of the major causes the cash of '29.