Topic: IF MT GOX DIES THEN BITCOIN PROBABLY WILL TOO (Read 4100 times)

yeah I'm with you. So we had (have???) some trading volume issues too eg if nobody noticed the fudged coins in the system the number of presumed 'lost' coins should go up ?

Say Gox have 50'000 more BTC registered with customer accounts than they actually have in their wallets. Then that is 50'000 less Bitcoins in the eco-system than the market thought. Providing that there is no inter-exchange counter-party risk here which I assume that their isn't, then this is not a run on the bank situation, but a robbery. Not so good for those who got robbed, but increases value of those who didn't get robbed.

The psychological impacts of this are another matter. I am with Bitstamp and have absolutely no fears about having my USD there at this point in time. I also had funds with Bitfinex, an exchange that I did feel a bit uneasy about, so i pulled what I had out of there. 

Who cares about MtGox, bitcoin price might crash to like 400-500 but it will go back to 700-800 range in no time..

+1

LOL @ OP: "If Bank of America Dies then the Dollar will too."

Failed logic.

Less in circulation than people have thought ? Isn't it crystal clear how many coins were minted eg block time / reward / halving vs current block I hope so, truly do else.....

Yes some are lost. But if Mt Gox went gambling any  'Fiat' btc created via 'creative' accounting is not going to disappear from the real circulation. They were never there in the first place. Now if all those that, presumably, but hopefully not lost their coins in the yet to be seen debacle, replenish their lost coins by buying from others: then yep I can see the price go up.

That's how I understand the controlled supply of BTC to work or am I on the wrong train

It depends on how GOX dies that matters how much it effects bitcoin.

If it slowly dies, as it has been doing, then no harm, people shift over to other exchanges.

If it dies in a massive fraud, e.g. "Uh, sorry folks, all your coins are gone." a la the inputs.io debacle then yes, big problem.

A run on the bank is a totally different thing from a bank being robbed.

If there were 500 gold coins in a small town, and someone robbed 250 of them, and there was no way of getting anymore gold coins into that town. The purchasing power of each remaining gold coin would double. Similarly, if there were 500 gold coins in a small town, 250 stored in one goldsmith A's vault and the other 250 in Goldsmith B's, but Goldsmith A had issued 2500 paper certificates, only for a large holder of Goldsmith A paper certificates to turn up to Goldsmith A's premise and demand payment in 300 gold pieces only to be to be given 250 and/or told their was 'technical hitches' preventing the Goldsmith from paying out the gold, then the value of Goldsmith A's paper gold receipts would plummet, the value of the physical gold coins themselves would probably rise as the volume of gold coins (or their paper 'equivalents') would become more scarce.

MtGox have probably 'printed' BTC on some kind of fractional reserve system in order that they can game with other peoples money, only for everything to have gone tits up. Bitcoin exchanges don't work like the banking system in that they aren't all leveraged up to the eyeballs in counterparty risk with each other. If/when MtGox folds, and disappears with whole bunch of Gox coins and Gox bucks, their will actually be less Bitcoins in circulation than the market believed. The numerical effect of Gox going down in the way in which it looks like it will go down, would actually increase the value of Bitcoin, not decrease it. The psychological impact of the trust that Bitcoiners feel that they can place in the remaining exchanges however, is the real unpredictable X-factor here.

It is now a widely accepted and "confirmed" fact it is MtGox that caused the recent Bitcoin price slide but I say this notion is a big a pile of horseshit as the 'Bitcoin hits $1000 on Zynga news' back in early January. If it were the case that MtGox caused the sharp correction, why then did all the major take down action, the lowest low, and the lionshare of volume occur on Bitstamp?

This is what nearly happened @the last finance crisis in the USA a few years ago, smartass.

Oh, so if bank gets robbed in USA for example, then the currency ($) collapses?
Interesting indeed...

So true

Bitcoin would be far better off without MTGox

Exactly. This is a zero-sum game and needs a constant supply of new suckers.

Countdown is begun,

Tokio/Japan GMT, 23:40
Peking/China  GMT, 22:40

Seems like good of a deal if that happens. Now we're getting stable hands.

Whyyyyy are bitcointalk users so damn fascinated by feeding trolls? This has to stopppppppppp!!!!!

Although this Gox ordeal may be painful for a lot of people,
I believe it is has done something good for the bitcoin community...
For the first time, people snapped out of looking at Gox for the "reference" price of bitcoin!

Most of the users who are aware of the difficulties of getting fiat out of Gox knew the "Gox price" is distorted for the past year, but it still remains as THE exchange to reference for a lot of people. Currently, Gox is trading below other major exchanges, which I believe is much healthier than before.

As to how Gox is going turn out on Monday, I hold quite a pessimistic view...

For every trade in the exchange, coins are simply changing hands, and no coins are generated or destroyed. Gox SHOULD always have enough bitcoins for traders to withdraw and there should never be ANY holdups. If they have resorted to sending coins manually in these few days to "catch up" with the backlog, they would have said so. The fact they have halted withdraw, it could be something more troubling.

Let's hope we get some good news

byebye Gox. you sucked anyway

Game is over.

How is MtGox an exchange?

They accept USD and bitcoins.

They only pay out bitcoins (until recently).

What do they do with the USD? Do they buy bitcoins on another exchange? Or...spend the USD on themselves and hope the small amount of bitcoins lasts long enough that nobody notices. Until they run out of bitcoins...and they have to make up a reason why they can no longer send bitcoins.

Gox said an update to the problem on Monday, not a fix. Gox doesn't fix issues, ever.

It won't matter to bitcoin itself.  I have a nub account and I know the Gox was a bad place to do business.  However, it will matter in the court of public opinion.  For some reason all the mainstream articles use Gox as 'the' exchange.  They only quote that price, and they will see this as a big problem.

For bitcoin to go mainstream, the press is important.  If people think bitcoin is a scam, or just for illegal trade, it keeps it bottled up.

Gox will go down, but the only thing this will cause is moving people to other exchanges.
You are all invited to kraken so the volume will increase 

Bitcoin Foundation will pay.

Correct answer is nobody!

When a company goes bankcrupt, nobody pays it's creditors!

Do I win £10?

And for a bonus prize, if a Bitcoin exchange goes bankcrupt, that can only mean that they done things with other people's money that they shouldn't have.....and it all went tits up!

Right now concerning exchanges there aren't really that many options.
If Mt Gox gues bankrupt everybody just loses all their money ? Who is going to pay the bill ? The CEO ? Nobody ?

As far as I am concerned Gox has been already dead - I took everything I've got there six months ago. If you have to wait for your money for weeks or months, what is the point of exchange? That said, exchanges are generally a weak spot and --hopefully-- there will be more of them coming online in near future.

What surprises me the most is the reason against switching to Bitstamp, one that I've heard a few times by now:

"Hell no, I'm not going to send my money to some shitty rathole country like Slovenia!"

Said the clowns who kept on happily sending their money and coins into the shitty rathole exchange mtgox.

I mean, I can see how you want to have some basic level of trust in the country in which the exchange is located, but even the most superficial research would have given you the following the results: Slovenia (EU member, part of Eurozone in fact), UK (country of registration), Italy (country of origin of their bank -- Unicredit Slovenia being a subsidiary of the Italian Unicredit). You can start ranting about how Slovenia has this and that problem, or how you don't trust Italian banks, or some bullshit, but I *did* this kind of research a year ago and concluded it was still way more reliable than a hacked together exchange in Japan. We'll see, Bitstamp might go down and I'll eat my words, but I don't see any signs for it at the moment.

Agreed.

I can't believe anybody has been stupid enough to put cash into Gox since Spring 2013. The cash in there is almost certainly "legacy" money. But what's amazing  is that people have left their coins there. I'd really like to hear from somebody who did that. Why did you do it?!!!

It Bitstamp AND localbitcoins go down, then I'll agree with you. Until then, it's a non-issue.

Sorry but I disagree with everyone here, it IS a serious problem for bitcoin going mainstream. While the coin community may have known of Gox's problems for awhile and are un phased, this is the year of Bitcoin's "coming out" to the public and governments all around the world taking notice. If a major exchange collapses or runs off with millions in fiat and coins, I can see the proverbial ban hammer of government happening sooner than we think. I know you can't kill bitcoin as a p2p currency but if there are no legal exchanges to buy or convert currencies to, well good luck...

Also as someone who joined the coin game relatively later, I have to ask a legitimate question, why is it so many bitcoin holders put full faith and their savings into a former Magic the Gathering trading card site run by incompetent boobs yet have spent the last 2 months making fun of meme coins, calling alt coins scam coins and what not? You trusted thousands of dollars to scammers overseas who won't let you withdraw your own money for months yet make fun of a coin with a dog on it? It makes no sense. I mean what did you think would happen, that a bunch of basement dwelling 2nd rate IT guys could become an effective multi-billion dollar international finance operation overnight? It's madness!

What's worse, how many here even routinely paid as much as $150 more per bitcoin on Gox than every other exchange and yet you can't even exchange it back to fiat and get paid in a timely manner! The level of stupidity among bitcoin holders who in theory should be of higher intelligence than the average mouth breather with faith in our Keynesian masters astounds me sometimes. The only thing I can figure is alot of cryptousers are Aspies and unfortunately naive to the world around them sometimes.

Please do not make the mistake of equating bitcoin with an exchange, especially an exchange that has gone down hill so much that it's extremely difficult to recognize anymore.

Bitcoin is so much bigger than mt.gox. Bitcoin is like the galaxy and mt.gox is like a cockroach.

This!

Gox smocks ts ts. See ya. The crypto idea is too big to be brought down by someplace that has only had the past as claim to fame.  "too big to fail" ring any bells ? Crypto actually is. With no need for bailout. It has a chance to restore our financial sovereignty or at least put up a good fight. The first thing of hope I have seen in many years of despair about where we are heading ie into debt slavery.

That being said: Sorry if anybody will loose funds. Likely, but eternal vigilance is not only the price of freedom. Don't have too much sitting around at arms length.

If Gox goes under it will be the best thing for BTC in the long run. Yes, bad in the short term and I do feel for those that ignored the red flags or were too green to see them, but the situation has gone on for too long and needs to be resolved one way or the other.
It is an opportunity for the community to take control from the inside and clean up it's own house. BTC will survive whatever happens, but the more proactive the community is in this the better it looks to the regulators.
At the moment their continued existence in this state is a major PR embarrassment ...

On the other hand there may yet be other unknown factors at play here that they are unable to disclose (still working with the authorities on SR related accounts for example), in which case, we may be being sabotaged from the outside if they have Gox by the balls ... just a thought ... IDK, and I am not trying to spread FUD

This is exactly why I always point new folks to coinbase...simple and familiar to Americans. The majority of the public doesn't know or understand how to use the other exchanges.  I really have very little concern for what happens to Gox for the new guys.

Ahhh. The voice of reason.

Perhaps you as a global moderator can see the need for a tightening of the rules allowing clueless noobs to start troll threads.

Would a higher minimum activity rating help?

Gox is irrelevant right now as noone gets money in or out. troll thread

Gox is NOT dying - what the hell is wrong with you people?

A temporary technical problem - that will be fixed on MONDAY.

You people need to smoke some hodl or something.

Yup,the real story is he's craping his pants over his GOX bitcoins

The fate of all the coins in GOX,unfortunately now has nothing to do with the depositors,you'll get a FUD  update from them on Monday,do you really trust what they say now anyway?

Sorry OP,accept they gone,or if you think a legal move would help you ,else move on

Stupid noobs come here to spread FUD  How original.

Stop opening your mouth for a month and READ you idiot.

OP fail

Gox has been dead to anyone with a brain since April 2013.

Yes but we've seen much worse and lived to tell the tale. There are plenty of other exchanges that are trustworthy. Get your cheap coins now if you want them.

Guys, are you living in a fantasy world?  I own plenty of bitcoin - some on gox, some on bitstamp and mostly w coin base.  I'm not trolling.  Regardless of whether gox's volume is decreasing, the bottom line is that bitcoin is always in need of new people getting into it.  If you think that mt gox going under is going to be a blip on the radar, then you are truly delusional.  Imagine the thought process of a new possible bitcoin purchaser:  "yeah, let me wire some money to slovenia or bulgaria after gox goes under" - hell no.  Trust of the major exchanges is critical.  If gox is a fraud, then this will be a huge crushing blow to bitcoin.  The fact that there are other exchanges doesn't mean s**t to the public. even though the underlying protocol is still sound, this is all about trust and faith - the very backbone of bitcoin.  bc without trust and faith behind bitcoin, there is nothing.   The vast majority of people thinking about buying bit coin will not do so if gox ends up being a fraud.  not everything written here that is negative about bit coin is trolling. 

Trolling?

http://www.coindesk.com/localbitcoins-users-criminal-charges-florida/

Quoting for emphasis. Mt Gox handles a small volume of trades overall. There's plenty of other exchanges, some bigger, some smaller, all ready to take its place.

Spoken like a true 18 post guy.

-B-

Yeah... No. Mt. Gox is already pretty insignificant, so bitcoin will do just fine with or without them.

IF MT GOX DIES THEN GOOD RIDDANCE.

LONG LIVE BITSTAMP!

troll thread

Nah, the system is sound. one exchange cant bring it down. the top dogs are planning decentralised exchanges for the future.

plus, there is always local bitcoins.

The massive holders of bitcoin are hopefully working something out w Mark K if there is something foul at gox.  If gox dies, almost no one will buy bitcoin going forward.  Who would have guessed that a young dude sitting on a blue ball would be the ruin of such a great idea?