At one point yesterday I believe the price of Bitcoin was lower on Mt. Gox than on BTC-e. Current prices are: Mt. Gox $727.90; BTC-e $718.01

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An “Extraordinary Delusion”.

Please something drive it down - I’m hoping for buying opportunities.

I've posted this previously a long time ago in my own words but here's another very similar version from The Quill Group Blog:

A long time ago, in a faraway land, (probably Iceland) the great sardine rush was underway. Everyone was making money from buying and selling sardines. Policemen, nurses and even bricklayers had given up their day jobs to concentrate on sardine trading. One day, in the middle of the great sardine rush, a young trader who had built up a position of 25 tonnes of sardines called up his broker and asked if they could meet down at the sardine warehouse. When they met, the broker unlocked the doors, and the young trader went inside to admire his mountain of sardines.

As he perched atop a box of the tasty morsels, he pulled a can out of a nearby box, and ripped open the lid. The foulest odour came out. They were rotten. Another box – the same result. All of his sardines were rotten! He turned to his broker and asked what he was supposed to do with 25 tonnes of rotten sardines! The broker, unaffected by the situation simply said to him, “Son, these sardines are for trading, they’re not for eating”.

And, so ended the lesson on assets which reach a point where trading rather than eating becomes the purpose. The broker made his point that with some assets you don’t want to be the bunny left holding the baby when the music stops. In the 80’s the asset we were talking about was shares in companies that had little more than a prospectus and a promise.

The problem with that analogy is that the US dollar is the sardines.

Agreed. Interesting timing as I just was listening to “Gimme Shelter” by the Stones.

And in 2015, you will not want to hold all of the dollars coming back to the US nor the gold and silver that will be deflating back to the mean.

I guess land is ok.

bit coin dependent on internet and power both under the control of various governments who promote their own currencies .....dugh

All that financial rebellion will have to find another venue.

The price is holding well on the other exchanges. The world currencies are in serious trouble. They're going to attempt to maintain the status quo for as long as possible, even to the point of trying to elbow the competition (i.e., gold, silver, bitcoin). We all know as things get worse worldwide with the economy, this is going to happen.

I'm holding the few I have, except for a purchase or two for some durable item. Why trade them for fiat?

All that financial rebellion will have to find another venue.

And just what would that be? Government has the power to come take anything they wish. Ask some of the old timers who had to give up there gold in the '30s.

If things really get bad, there is nothing that offers the ability to skirt TPTB like P2P Cryptocurrency.

Interesting. To generate funds to settle an estate I am administrator of I have to be able to convert bitcoins to dollars.

As a test I sold one bitcoin on Mt. Gox back when it was at $1200 something each. Then I tried to transfer the proceeds into a verified bank account. That was back in December sometime. That money still hasn't showed up.

I did the same at Coinbase. The US$ were transferred in promptly, and when Coinbase said they would be.

A bit of googleing tells me that Mt. Gox has a reputation for being very slow to transfer.

If you can't actually change the money and get it, can Mt. Gox be considered an "exchange"? And why pay attention to the price there?

A lot of the bitcoin related businesses I've had to deal with for this strike me as "amateur". That's the kindest way of putting it.

Not saying bitcoin is the answer. BUT, we are about to enter a deflationary spiral. Hyperinflation is still pretty far away. When you read on the “fringe” sites that gold and silver are the answers, one would have to ask, if that were the case how come the price is not shooting up?

The big, old, money is selling gold.

Land, bitcoin, precious metals and cash. It’s the distribution that is in question.

Plus, the Internet and power will not go down everywhere.

If they do, bullets and beans are the only answer. It will get bad. But not THAT bad.

bit coin dependent on internet and power both under the control of various governments who promote their own currencies .....dugh

And no governance except the insane Norks is going to turn off either.

I've never used Mt. Gox or ever move my few Bitcoins to cash for that matter. However, I always suspected the higher premium that Mt. Gox commanded was related to the difficulty of moving out to cash, etc. Looks like folks who have accounts there may be giving up and why the selling.

The problem isn't all of Mt. Gox's fault. They've been hit with closing of their link to American banks. Also, BTC-e is having problems with the Russian system to. It's a battle royal going on behind the scenes, IMO.

I have used a few fractions to purchase a couple of watches from Overstock. That went very well. Perhaps as more and more merchants take bitcoin and litecoin, moving it into fiat will not be the desirable thing to do. One other thing I'm thinking about is exchanging some for gold/silver. There is a PM vendor in the states that takes Btc.

I will always have a little crypto, if for no other reason than diversification.

"To understand the issue thoroughly, the system needs to be in a static state,"

Things that make you go "Hmmmm..."

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