Topic: MtGox withdrawal delays [Gathering] - page 304. (Read 908751 times)

I don't know the research, I don't have a degree in finance, all I know is I worked for years on wall street and our primary line of business was arbitrage trading, and we made good money doing it. It's funny, most of the folks at my firm didn't have a degree in finance either, maybe the finance majors were scared away from our company because what we did was theoretically impossible .

Also, your paper is about a very advanced and liquid market, forex. Don't you think applying its conclusions to the bitcoin markets is a little optimistic?

I guess it depends what your timescale is. That's actually narrower than it was yesterday.

Well, the spread is widening at an alarming rate:

▲ mtgoxUSD    121.5000    
▲ bitstampUSD 104.4300
Spread: 16.8%

oh so you dont care about those who have millions in gox & want a fair spread to get out? Its better for everyone if MtGox fade away slow - explain how its not?

& BS i've done enough internet marketing to know promotion, back linking etc, i dont really care about that but come on...

People wouldn't lose money on the spread if they weren't listening to your FUD.  This is like watching a zombie movie.  Zombies trying to infect stupid people to make more zombies.  I make money on the spread.  So do many other posters in this thread, but not all of us are doing out best to escalate it.  To me what's best for Bitcoin comes before what's best for my own wallet.

Oh I was wondering where those pretty charts of the spreads between the exchanges came from. Zeroblock's site eh? I guess his advertising worked , I'm heading over to check out his site.

If the market will bear it, why not?

If they haven't been stealing customer funds, they should be able to get out of this hole. If they have been stealing customer funds, they're going down.

The real problem is denial of their obligations. Mt. Gox has serious financial obligations to their customers, and they try to sleaze out of them. That's usually associated with scams.

A legit Bitcoin exchange is probably going to have to register as a broker/dealer in some G-20 country, and comply with the regulations for regular brokers. Audits, insurance, capital requirements - it's not just about money laundering. Brokers hold customer assets, and somebody needs to be checking on them to see that they have those assets. Bitfloor and Bitcoinica customers learned that the hard way.

It looked for a while that CoinLab, which was backed by Silicon Valley Bank and some VCs, was going to do that for Mt. Gox. But they had a falling out within two months of signing a deal, and now they're in litigation.

ok great so let them lose business naturally, spreading FUD all over the forum to advertise your site is just pissing people off.

Please share the data you have on when the CoinLab suit started.  

You are pretty upset eh? It's cool, vent it out at me, I can take it.


Hey, I doubt we see the facts all that differently.. I was just hoping to get you to tone down your claims a bit. Saying things like "arbitrage opportunities only exist for microseconds in modern markets" is really a misleading statement, because (1) it's not even true in the major stock exchanges (microseconds is *really* fast! you get into things like light speed limitations and such at that level..) and (2) bitcoin is far from a mature, efficient market like the major electronic markets around the world.

That said, I agree that this is not just a pure arb sitting there for every doofus to take advantage of. There's enormous counterparty risk at mtgox right now, and some at the other exchanges as well. So the term "risk-free profit" is really misleading as well.. if you sell the spread, you're basically making a bet that mtgox will eventually wire your money.

It sorta looks like what you're trying to do, zeroblock, when you say things like "The spread is widening at an alarming rate" is to cause more people to panic. Hardly jives with "I care that everyone see the bigger picture, and understand the risks that they are taking." I mean, it's cool to me because our algorithms are experiencing increased trade volumes and profits due to people panic trading, nevertheless it hardly seems charitable to incite people to more panic trading.

MtGox has well over 50% of the market and shows no signs of dying.  It is the only exchange featuring proper multi-currency trading, it has the most secure and mature API, has the deepest books and is the most trusted of all exchanges.  MtGox has survived worse problems in the past, and will come out stronger.

If gox all of a sudden finishes that is bad for the crypto community do you understand this? large sums of investment gone.   Gox can lose market share without dying, this is optimum for the bitcoin community. 

Wow, really? That would be the current speed record. Very good.

I do not understand why experienced people like you are so enraged. You've decided to withdraw your money there, okay. You pay for it but have your safety now. So what? Why do we do not even calm down again?

Gox can of course go to the dogs but how likely is that? In all likelihood Gox will remain an important exchange that you want to use again.

I find the present situation even exciting. I am working for the first time with alternatives to Gox. But if we lose Gox, what would we have won? It would proof that no exchange can survived long term. We get stuck into bitcoin marketplaces like localbitcoins and the trading volume remains permanently low. Without exchanges bitcoin will never be an alternative to other currencies.

99% of people on bitcointalk know depositing @ gox & expecting a quick withdraw at this point is risky its all over the forum.  Whats your real motivation?

I care that everyone see the bigger picture, and understand the risks that they are taking.  I don't want you to influence uneducated users, who then might transfer money to Gox, thinking that Gox is liquid enough to withdraw fiat.  Then their funds will be stuck and exposed to the risk of Gox failure.  

I agree with you that small arbitrage opportunities might exist, however it looks like large arb opportunity cannot exist to do cash flow limits.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=277455.msg2972810#msg2972810.  The reality is that Gox can't support large outflows of cash, this is proven by the existing spread.  No large player can take advantage of the arb opportunity, otherwise the spread would be 0%.  Therefore, this arb opportunity will exist and spread larger and larger as traders on Gox realize that they can't actually cash out large sums.  In fact, the sustained (average) spread increased yesterday (8/19) to an all time record of 16%.  That was the average spread throughout the entire day. And yes, you might be able to take advantage of small arb opportunities, but you still expose yourself to the risk of Gox failing. You might make a 50% profit, then lose your entire initial capital when Gox closes up.  




Each day that passes proves my point.  The spread is widening at an alarming rate.   A week ago it was 10%.  Where do you think that spread is heading?  And why do you think it is heading that way?  Its a loss of confidence with Gox that is accelerating.  What's the tipping point? 20%? (already happened) 25% 30%? Certainly that tipping point is not too far away. At this pace, I see Gox's end within the next 4-6 weeks.  If anyone would like the excel spreadsheet containing my data or charts, please PM me.  

LOL One person posts about a wire received in 12 days and that's good news? 12 fucking days?

Anyway, you are completely wrong about +10k wires. People in this very thread have +100k withdrawals pending.

You people defending Gox by cherry picking bits of "good news" while ignoring the huge number of reported problems and broken promises look like disgusting shills from the outside. Just sayin.

Thanks for posting good news for a change. It looks like +10,000€ wires indeed clear faster.

I guess so. I find it bit strange. When I wire 10,000 to Mt.Gox it only costs 1.20 EUR instead of 100 EUR. I guess their bank's withdrawals have different rates. I thought the EUR SEPA zone was supposed to get rid of these costs.

Anyway, of course I'm very happy to receive funds.