http://www.salon.com/2013/04/03/bitcoins_crazy_day/

:stoned

ADG

I was under the impression that bitcoins are decentralized and so can not be stopped?
and yet, downing only a few sites for only a few hours caused a 20+% decline in price? :helpme :error

there is a difference between typical market manipulation through rumors, sell offs, etc and downing the bitcoin sites. it would like someone calling in a bomb threat to wallstreet and shutting it down.

its just so easy to ddos sites. the same people mining bitcoins with botnets are most likely the same ones ddosing the sites. they already have the botnets.

i'm figuring you know more about this than i do but i remember the junk bond market, it was entirely propped up from the inside right?

btc is decentralized, the exchange that was hit, mtgox, has commanded a lion's share of the exchange business so when they were hit, it was similar to hitting a large chunk of the entire exchange market. I've seen some #s that claim 90% of all btc business is transacted through mtgox.

DDOS NYSE and get caught = probably life time in jail for financial terrorism charges
DDOS Mt.Gox = no one gives a fuck, it would probably be of about the same importance as investigating someone DDOSing a porn tube site.. :1orglaugh

check out michael milken http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Milken

another would be enron, they completely cornered and fucked the energy markets.


i don't disagree that it's easy to ddos, but this was a very coordinated attack at more than one well protected site, not protected enough, but it seems plausible that serious btc speculators could have done it.

my point was if few hour downtime of Mt.Gox causes 20% drop in price, what would a downtime lasting days, or complete shut down of Mt.Gox do to the price of bitcoins?

What would happen if wallstreet stops working for 3 days?

Yes basically. But junk bonds really don't exist anymore. There are credit ratings on bonds and most individual investors will only go with A+ rated bonds, unless they are complete morons. Also with all the crazy shit that has happened in the market over the course of the last decade, Ponzi's schemes & such. The regulations that have been implemented now are extremely strict. It is a lot harder to manipulate things now then it used to be.

i'm sure we will find out within the next several months, i wold think there will be more of this to come, mtgox said their beefed-up new site won't be ready with all the security features until the end of the year.


i see, the other thing i was thinking of re: markets being manipulated from the inside is the bro's network. favors cashed in, calls made, only the sweet deals going to those already sitting at the table.

i'd think a lot of that still influences the exchanges eh?

you are a funny guy (y)

I'm with ya. For as "safe" as everyone claims it is, it is looking like one of the most fragile currencies ever created. A simple ddos drops the value that much and they say nothing can be done about that. :helpme This has potential disaster all over it. They have to figure out a way to get this under control if they want it to survive.

There have been several times where they have closed for other reasons, the last time was just this past October for hurricane Sandy. They stop trading. Stocks don't fall off a cliff because of it.

Besides that, Wall Street closes every weekend for two days. :upsidedow

yea i just saw

by Joe Weisenthal

Instawallet — a site that offers a quick way to create your own Bitcoin wallet — just announced that it’s been hacked and will not reopen until it can “develop an alternate architecture.”

Here’s the announcement on the site.

The entire Bitcoin ecosystem is having pains today amid all of the attention. The various sites that provide quotes are very slow.

We talked to Clark Moody, who runs a great Bitcoin quote page, who said his traffic has more than doubled in the last month, and who says his servers are creaking.

Also the proprietor of Bitcoincharts is seeing bottlenecks due to high traffic, he tells us.

Image Reference

Geek.com

Once Bitcoin ATMs are widespread, reliance on exchanges will taper off big time.

Yes, funded and backed by the trust of the people.

Once...

If....

Maybe...

That is a ways away. Going to be a bumpy ride until, if, that happens and people actually use them. Ordering them is one thing, getting the population to use them is another.

Though, how do you figure that will change reliance on exchanges? ATMs for cash are all over the world and they have nothing to do with exchange rates. It just provides more convenience for getting and depositing money.

Sounds very similar to the way the stock markets are manipulated :pimp

The way I see it, for now the hackers and script kiddies will manipulate this market and then once Wall Street get involved then it'll be back to status quo

Was hoping that would be a few months away :Oh crap

I tend to side with your opinion DWB that governments will have put an end to Bitcoin long before ATMs for Bitcoin are implemented.

They better hurry cause ATM's are about 2 weeks away.

Because getting bitcoins is a pain, unless you have a person in your area selling. If I can just go down the street, put in a 100 bill and have bitcoins instantly in my wallet, thats 100000x better and many people using bitcoin feel the same way I'm sure. It would also make people spend more into the economy, since they can replace whatever they just spent pretty quickly.

Source? Last I heard there was a proposal for one in Cyprus but that was it for the immediate future.

Cheers Franck

So instead of one ATM there is going to be around 4 ATMs "soon" in two locations and no immediate info on when ATMs will be rolled out in other countries. Hmmmm

IMO it'll take a very long time to roll out if that's the type of capital he's looking to raise :2 cents:

The most important info in that article is this

thanks for posting this!

op, watch this youtube when you get a sec. :)

I get that, but how does that change anything in regards to the reliance of its exchange rate? So what if a handful of guys use a bitcoin ATM. That isn't going to make any difference at all on the exchange rate.

Millions, if not billions of people use ATMs for cash. Doesn't make any difference at all on what the USD is worth.

Bitcoins are decentralized and peer to peer. DDOSing exchanges doesn't effect it's operation or ability to pay and receive them. When the mass of people only use one exchange rate (mtgox) it scares them when it goes down and they panic sell. Throw up more exchange sites or reinforce mtgox with DDOS mitigation.

He didn't think that out very well. I like a lot of his videos but he's off on this one.

His point about if a bank branch wasn't doing well one day that the media would not report that the USD was hacked, it flawed. The USD would not lose 20% of its value if a bank branch couldn't create accounts fast enough, per his description.

Secondly, the word "hack" was used to deliver the story to people who do not know anything about computers or what a ddos is. WE all know what it means, but 99% of the population does not, but they all understand the word "hacked." The media always dumbs the stories down. That is how they reach the masses. Adam "The Man" knows this too.

Last, the word "hack" is defined several ways, some of which do describe what happened to bitcoin.

- to damage or injure by crude, harsh, or insensitive treatment
- to reduce or cut ruthlessly; trim
- to cut, notch, slice, chop, or sever (something) with or as with heavy, irregular blows (often followed by up or down )

All of which could be used to say they "hacked" 20% off the value of bitcoin. The ddos reduced, or hacked, the value of bitcoin. And so on. "Hacked" doesn't always have to mean what WE think it means, which is a security breach or about computer security.

Those of you who do not speak English as a first language get a pass. Those of you who do speak English as a first language and are opposed to the headlines should spend more time augmenting your vocabulary. Just sayin'.

not really.

granted, he got mixed up on the bank branch analogy, but his point is still valid. here's a better analagy, bank of america takes a shit, not the branch in 2008, not one mention of the dollar being hacked, it was couched as bailing out the bank. none of us knew wtf "bank bailout" meant at the time, just like you are saying most don't know what "hacker" means, but we were fed bank bailout.

no, hacker is a sensationalist term that does not portray the events accurately at all.

theres no point in arguing. time will tell and the fools will be proven fools. words marked!

bitcoins are for morans

people say that about bleeding edge shit everytime. fact is, early adopters risk their asses backing unproven technology, 90+% of the time it fails.

there's a multi-billion dollar industry based on it, it's called venture capital, look at the success rate for those morans, 1 out of 20 maybe?

let's look at baseball players, step up to the plate and only hit the ball 1 out of every 3 times and you will find yourself in the hall of fame one day.


but don't try. just don't try or people will call you a fool for trying.

What is a moran? Did you mean moron maybe?

It amazes me just how upset and butthurt these people are.
They are in every thread screaming and crying how horrible Bitcoin is.
I really only can find 1 reason for that. And that is that they hate to see other people making easy money.
What other reason could there possibly be for this behaviour?

I can understand mentioning you don't like Bitcoins every now and then but this group of haters...man...it's like their life depends on it to be in every thread explaining how evil Bitcoin is.
It just doens't make sense.

crissy moran!

http://www.teenport.com/new_images/m...issy-moran.jpg

Those microwave contraptions were for morons. What kind of idiotic sorcery could cook faster than an oven. Those things will never sell. And automobiles; dumbest idea ever.

Newsweek in 1995: Why the Internet will Fail.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswee...ernet-bah.html

not even comparable. the price of bitcoins is all based on speculation right now. non tangible items like bitcoin can't live on speculation forever. if they are not actually used for something (besides buying illegal shit) by a large segment of the population prices will eventually drop over time to maybe $10-20 per. i think this is just reality. i consider myself highly skeptical but not a hater. i am still on fence about buying some. i've lost way more money on other things in the past.

This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
- Western Union internal memo, 1878

the internet as it was in 1995 would of failed had it not evolved. same will go for bitcoins. if they are actual common uses created for them they may have longevity. if its 99% speculation and 1% usage, it won't.