Topic: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion - page 33473. (Read 26496348 times)

 

Poor ChartBuddy. Lonely posting during stability period. 

Good times for buyers at Bitstamp. Way too many coins in there for the fiat in the order book.

Correct. It's much easier to get around the issue with Bitcoins. Get a vpn, get a proxy, and you can access the site. You can use Bitcoins (no ip) and you're good to go.

If the sites block US IPs, they're protected from the US Govt. US players can easily get around it, using Bitcoins it's extremely hard (sometimes impossible) to track, and the US Govt can't do shit.

Bitcoin gambling sites blocking US IPs is a good move, long overdue. The more Bitcoin related sites that get and stay legal the better.

This is what I think happened. The new FinCEN rules came out. It meant if you exchange virtual currency, you better be registered as a MSB with FinCEN. MtGox didn't want to do that, so they were working a deal to offload all their US accounts to CoinLab. Thus solving the problem. Turns out they back out of the deal, keep using Dwolla to handle US accounts, and end up getting caught. I have no doubt Coinlab dropped a friendly "tip" to DHS about MtGox. This is probably why they only went after their Dwolla, they failed to register as a MSB. Typical Gox failure, instead of properly try to solve the problem, they tried to work a deal, backed out, it blew up in their face. In terms of the Bitcoin market it's fairly minor. It's a boost to other exchanges, people will get registered, people will be legit, it's good for everyone overall.


You shouldn't let Americans gamble with a virtual currency on your site. Does everyone forget what happened with poker? All gambling sites on the internet should ban US IPs. It's not worth the trouble. For satoshidice you can still bet, still get paid, Bitcoin doesn't know your IP. I'm sure someone will create a site that scans the blockchain so you can view "recent bets". That's about the only thing useful on the site. People will post the addresses to place bets. People thinking that it would always be legal for Americans to bet Bitcoins online were being foolish. People getting legal, setting up the site properly, protecting themselves from future legal matters, that's all good. Like most poker sites online, block americans, problem solved. There's a reason WebMoney blocks Americans. It's not worth the trouble.


In those types of lawsuits, claiming damages it's usually a ridiculous amount. I doubt MtGox backing out cost them much more then maybe a million or two. This stuff usually gets resolved way before a case, I'm sure they'll settle out of court. Otherwise the lawyers end up the only ones making money. Also even if they lost, collecting the money is another matter. MtGox has a number of lawyers, I don't think this puts their business at risk. At least not for years. I'm sure a lawyer who knows more then I can comment on these types of contract disputes. From what I know, CoinLab ever seeing 75m is extremely unlikely. They'd have to win, and a judge agree, MtGox appeal, MtGox lose appeal, and MtGox pay. That's a 5-8 year process.

Well, since this is mainly about not being dragged in court it is well enough within a reasonable effort.

... and YES they did it :-)

Bitcoin is p2p (protocol does not log your IP). If satoshidice says "we are blocking US IP" then if you understand what is p2p you will realize "it is impossible" but if you do not understand what is p2p and Bitcoin then you can "think" they did it :-)

Bitstamp, Coinbase, CampBX and Bitinstant are really trying to pick up the ball of the available volume as Americans begin to shift off of Gox.  One or two of the others can probably pick up the slack.  Bitinstant received a decent bump in funding, 1.5m USD from the Winklevii twins, Coinbase received a 5m USD funding on Tuesday http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2013/05/07/coinbase-nabs-5m-in-biggest-funding-for-bitcoin-startup/.  The position is there for one of them to fill in.

Isn't that how conservative gambling sites operate?
Well would still be a legal gray area though. Not that it matters much.

Every bit increases the known magnitude of incompetence though. God knows how incompetent they really are, at least they managed to stay in business if that means anything.


This has wider percussions than satoshidice though if they are affected so is the entirety of Bitcoin gambling sites operating on clearnet.



Maybe, the sum is quite substantial and I think it can threaten mtgox as a business, perhaps bankruptcy? We don't yet know how the market would be without gox. I'd say it's a considerable risk.


Yes, I agree, at least in terms of what's good for the ecosystem. I don't really have an idea what prices would do when it's gone.

Looking deeply into nothingness is not advisable.

US Govt doesn't take something down piecemeal. Review Kim Dotcom and poker to see how they work. Just taking the Dwolla account lets MtGox change domains (off .com), move servers, move money (their accounts in Japan likely have much much much more money). DHS/DOJ don't play nice and give people "warning shots". MtGox being incompetent isn't news. They shouldn't have let people use Dwolla. The reason they were probably interested in the Coinlab deal was because they knew they weren't legal. Coinlab probably knew his and probably reported them. Again, MtGox being incompetent isn't news. It would be news if they weren't.  
 
Blocking US ips was a smart move by SatoshiDice. It's not worth the legal risk. Americans can still gamble, they can find out how, the website was garbage anyway.

MtGox/Coinlab lawsuit will likely drag on for years, has very little to do with the market and/or Bitcoin.

CampBX uses Dwolla. They're based in the USA. DHS could shut down their entire operation. But they're still up, they're still letting people use Dwolla to get Bitcoins. So clearly it's not an attack on Bitcoins. It's merely MtGox getting caught doing something they shouldnt.

Med/Long term it was good news. People leaving MtGox, moving to other exchanges. We need more bad news for MtGox, so more people will move.

You are making a mole hill into a mountain. What happened with Dwolla/MtGox was NOTHING. Look deeply into it. It is nothing. It is a blessing in disguise if you think even a bit about it.

I'm not saying we come out on top, for as you said, perhaps the internet get shut down. But, I trust in Universe...