Topic: As long as Mtgox does the majority of trades BTC has a problem (Read 734 times)

It certainly isn't good to have that sort of monopoly.

I suspect that there are (or will be) serious liquidity problems with Mt Gox. With the mania of the last week or so I cashed out a few BTC. The liquidity required to pay out people who are cashing out of BTC will be huge and Gox in turn will need to exchange BTC with other exchanges in order to get that liquidity to pay.

BTC is a really interesting experiment. Its a shame my money is being used to fund it ... for 0 return. Lets face it: man can not live by bitcoin alone. 
 
 

8.01   a few seconds ago   150.00
mtgox   3.35   a few seconds ago   106.00
mtgox   0.36   a few seconds ago   140.00
mtgox   0.06   a few seconds ago   145.00
mtgox   5.00   a few seconds ago   150.00
mtgox   0.28   a few seconds ago   145.00
mtgox   1.00   a few seconds ago   150.00
mtgox   73.00   a few seconds ago   106.00
mtgox   10.00   a minute ago   120.00
mtgox   5.08   a minute ago   150.00
mtgox   0.25   2 minutes ago   140.00
mtgox   4.10   2 minutes ago   106.00
mtgox   12.05   2 minutes ago   150.00
mtgox   10.96   3 minutes ago   106.00
mtgox   0.61   3 minutes ago   150.00
mtgox   0.02   3 minutes ago   145.62
mtgox   293.50   3 minutes ago   106.00
mtgox   0.01   4 minutes ago   106.08
mtgox   0.01   4 minutes ago   106.28


this is from bitcoinity.org, usually a nice little real-time trade update, today it lagged, I'm assuming like MtGox for a large portion of the sell off, whatever happened. This must have been between 3 and 4 EST So maybe between 2 and 3 counting the lag. I saw a bunch of fairly high, above average trades go through right before this, maybe a few hundred a few times at the lower 107 level, Something just doesn't seem right here, would love to see the graph, but Bitcoinity.org is down right now and we should all know MtGox has some pretty terrible graphs, just thought Id share this

Decentralized, easy to fund, makes me coffee.

Well, as long as you get one of these, I'll be happy.

I'm looking into starting up an exchange in light of some glaring problems. Excluding reliability and no latency, what functionality and features would you want as end user over the likes of mtgox and btc-e

There are other options besides Mt.Gox or VirtEx in Canada.

Agreed. Mt.Gox has un unstable monopoly and will be a target.

Buy from smaller outfits..

I think its too early to say what exactly has happened. This will surely send some people into other exchanges, which is probably what is needed.

thanks for this!

What about Camp BX based out of the US.
https://campbx.com/main.php

This post by Taenk about alternatives to Mt Gox is excellent:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1b9sak/alternatives_to_mtgox/

Why dont you guys move your bitcoins to BTCe then?

Their support sucks but atleast it doesn't lag like shit like MTGOX.

I trade in USD on Bitstamp.

They're based in Europe, but trade in USD (I'm guessing since thats the major currency like for oil/Gold). So far I've been very impressed with their services, I was verified in two days and since I can pay from within Europe I've done payments in and out with ease very quickly.

What is the 2nd best USD exchange and why it is not more popular?

MtGox can't kill bitcoin. The same thing happened in 2011 when the GOX hacking drove the price down to $2 a coin. If anything this is good for the bitcoin economy as it give more people a chance to get involved at a reasonable price. Bitcoin wins if it has widespread adoption.

Yup. Exactly.

I can guarantee you if nothing changes we will see the exact same thing 2 weeks from now again.
And the same posts on this forum and the same questions and the same panic.

How much more does this need to happen? How much more can it happen. When will people say this is not worth putting money in anymore.
I'm afraid this might be quite soon.

Agreed.

Irrespective of your view of relative value of the current price (ie bull or bear) no $1bn+ market can be supported without some clear ability to see the actual current price and some proper depth of liquidity within which to trade.

Despite the clear evidence of quality in the construction of the bitcoin itself, there is much surrounding this market which is simply not good enough for purpose. All the exchanges are making enough money to invest in proper processes, staffing and equipment, whether they have the management and strategic ability to do-so remains unclear.

What's happening now will happen over and over again till everyone loses complete trust in BTC and then it will die.
Mtgox might kill BTC before it even really started.
If we want to continue this beautiful thing something has to change ASAP.
That is if we recover from this crash already.