Topic: decentralized Bitcoin are highly centralized to mtgox!11 (Read 28389 times)

or just use this link to go there: http://tradehill.com/?r=TH-R11543, that's even simpler

MtGox now has a real competitor, so it is now far less decentralized: http://www.tradehill.com/

More features, lower fees (and a 10% discount on all fees if you use this code: TH-R1168)

My bad, I thought we were being serious for a second.

IMHO the guy is scum.


However, it should also be pointed out that anyone making any kind of arrangements in BTC is an idiot. How many currencies of normal countries(Zimbabwe aside, okay?) do you know that have 600% fluctuations in their currency?

Anyone with half an awake central bank fluctuates between -50% - +100% of a certain mean over years(EURUSD: 0.82-1.6 range since around the inception, last 8 years: 1.17-1.6 = less than 40% change). And that is over several months/years, not within 6 weeks.


BTC is like a penny stock, not a currency.
People need to start waking up and put ideology and fantasy aside when it comes to real money, real obligations.

Other than that, what kind of guy has liquidity problems with < $1000 amounts? You should not be doing _ANY_ kind of business if $1000 is a lot of money for you.

I think you are right. It's hard for people to deal when they haven't experienced anything like this. It's just not safe to agree to pay coins you don't have or to do your accounting in one currency and promise to pay another and not hedge properly.

If I promise to pay someone in coins I have the coins and consider them gone. If I want to protect my feelings about how costly work or goods are I can buy more coins so that the spend was essentially in fiat.

Be sure in your own mind what you are doing. Don't think "I promised to pay 3BTC, that is $24. Oh, shit now it's $58." You never promised to pay $24. You promised 3BTC and nothing has changed about that.

On a side note I should note that while I have contracted people in bitcoins, I always add a condition stating that either party can request a re-evaluation of the paid amount should the bitcoin rate change too much (I usually define "too much" as +/- 10% BTC/USD rate). This is a fair condition, both for me (should the rate incrase too much I can buy additionnal bitcoins easily) and for the other party (should the rate get too low, they can request re-evaluation too, and not continue working for crap).

As for the DDoS itself, it seems that the now installed protections are doing their job as expected. The rate ended going quite high because of people hurrying to buy before the site goes down again instead of buying bits per bits to avoid too large impact on the market, so our russian guys had the exact reverse effect of what they wanted. I'd say it's sad for them, and the fact the rate doesn't seem to be dropping again means everyone trust bitcoins has - or will have - at least the value it has now.

Anyway may this serve as a lesson to everyone: do not make contracts based on a value that can buy a cake one day, and a car the next day.

Here's an angle I haven't seen discussed. I may be misinterpreting this, in which case someone please put me straight. The Russian-English sometimes makes it hard for me to understand.

At the top of this thread, bitcoinex said:


My English interpretation is: "Dammit, I resent having to pay people (for work done) with Bitcoins! Confess that you (i.e. MtGox) are fixing the exchange rate!"

Perhaps bitcoinex contracted with someone to do some work, and set a price in BTC (e.g. 100BTC per week). It's now costing too much to buy the BTC to pay for the work being done.

A bit later in this thread:

Interpretation: "I like the idea of Bitcoin as a means of payment, but now I have to pay three times as much (because of the rate increase). These jumps (in the exchange rate) are a black mark against the use of Bitcoin as a means of payment."

Perhaps bitcoinex is financially desperate due to the three-times increase in his costs (measured in fiat), and he can't meet the payments due.

MagicalTux said that the ransom demand associated with the DDOS asked for two things: a sum of money, and for the MtGox exchange rate to be reduced. Now who might want those two particular things?

Then bitcoinex's exchange stops paying out, but for a short time keeps accepting deposits. These things make one wonder.

I'm not making any kind of allegation here. I'm just painting how the material already out there already looks, and inviting bitcoinex to clear his name.

Ok, criticism rescinded.

Bruce, I understand that you're on a crusade against btcex, but is this all stemming from the DDoS thing? Could you at least refer to him as a "unscrupulous businessman" or point to some evidence that he scammed somebody? Using an attack to generate publicity for an important cause (decentralization of exchanges) is not scamming. Neither is actually funding or planning/executing a DDoS. He may be a douche (I don't have enough information to tell for sure), but I don't see how he's a scammer.

Haha i called him a fraud before and people told me that btcex.com is "not strictly fraud".

Oh the irony.

Here's what I want to know...
Can anyone please give me a LIST of all the sites, businesses, etc. that are owned by  "bitcoinex"  or his exchange site,  "btcex"....?
I want to be certain to ban them from our directory (as he is a known liar / scammer).

Please reply HERE:  http://bitcoinme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=16#p16

Thanks!     

I would like to try to solve this problem!
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/want-to-start-an-anonymous-bitcoin-exchange-8078

pffff. I read the google translation of the referenced forum post.

Obviously btcex closed the exchange because some user threatens to drag him to court in Serbia for not receiving a withdrawal.

Why that makes closing the exchange necessary is beyond me, I suspect other reasons.

Agreed, however...


How do you do withdrawals on a closed site anyway ?

Someone posted that bitcoin withdrawals from BTCex are temporarily disabled... "due to technical issues".

However, bitcoin deposits are still working fine...    Miraculously.   

Anyone who uses this exchange site --- knowing the information presented here --- deserves what they get.

Never do business with scammers and people of no ethics.

NEVER.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. How do you think we got such things as government?

sony == evil; ddos sony == good
mtgox != evil; ddos mtgox == bad

However...

Simply by admitting to affiliating with or triggering the distributed denial of service attack does not imply that the ddoser is evil.

Expanding upon the simplicity of the two lines above, it appears that btcex had a partial good (or nonevil) motive, whether it is accepted or agreed upon by one or more community members or not, that may have been misunderstood by an initial "ohnoes, you're ddosing something I use... you're evil now." (hint: "ohnoes, you're ddosing playstation network that I use to play games... you're evil now.")  In the case of ddos against sony, there is a kind of established consensus amongst intelligent critical thinkers that ddosing sony is good and therefore there are many acceptant participants.  In the case of ddos against mtgox, there is not yet any kind of established consensus amongst intelligent critical thinkers that ddosing mtgox is good and therefore there is currently only such known efforts by one individual.

The particular individual that ddosed mtgox is Russian, and that is an additional stereotypical negative reputation factor, however, not all Russians are evil by default.  And some supposed evilnesses of Russians are assumed and perpetuated.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is, and although I will probably never use btcex (as well as most likely never use any physical currency to bitcoin exchange market because I have intention of working for bitcoins instead of working for us dollar), I am not immediately convinced that the supposed ddos attack is guaranteed negative reputation for btcex.  People make mistakes and cause drama (e.g. my mom is horrendously wrong, crazy and evil and blatantly denies it as well as responds oppositionally and retaliatorily in quite nonsensical ways), however, such efforts do not necessarily affect their reputations directly.  e.g. Just because my mom is drama queen, behaves irrationally, causes much frustration, aggravates and frustrates others, whines, complains, hissy fits, interrupts, verbally assaults, excuses herself (e.g. hypocrite), etc. does not mean that I trust her any more or less.  Actually, I just recently vacationed in San Francisco, and she was quite reliable or trustworthy in regards to being there to assist me in responsible and helpful ways.  So, just because she does something that I do not agree with (e.g. triggers a ddos or complains about the Noisebridge community) does not mean she is any more or less reputable, trustworthy, reliable, etc.

Exactly. Ostracism is usually stronger than law anyway.

... centralised exchange problem is only going to be around during the monetising phase of bitcoin ... after a majority of users have got out of fiat and into crypto-currencies the exchanges will only be between the crypto-money flavours ... and by that time who'll care what business the exchanges are doing?

I love all of you