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Posted on 02/27/2014 5:38:34 AM PST by Errant
U.S. and Japanese regulators are investigating the collapse of the world's largest exchange for trading bitcoins, the virtual currency that has grown in popularity among technophiles for buying products and services online.
The separate investigations were launched Wednesday as supporters of the virtual currency insisted that the shutdown of Mt. Gox was only a temporary setback for the novel monetary system.
The failure of the Tokyo exchange, which may have included the theft of almost 750,000 bitcoins worth more than $300 million, was seen by critics as derailing prospects for the virtual currency.
But several high-profile bitcoin investors came forward in its defense Wednesday.
"Mt. Gox had to die for bitcoin to thrive. Its former role from early bitcoin days has been supplanted by better, stronger entities," said Marc Andreessen, a Web browser pioneer whose venture firm Andreessen Horowitz has invested about $50 million in bitcoin start-ups. "Every important new technology has birthing pains. PC did, Web did, bitcoin does."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
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“virtual currency “
It is not a “virtual currency.”
It’s magic. Smoke and mirrors. A clever scheme to turn pixels on a screen into real money for the developers.
Some people made real money because others put real money into it. No bitcoin was ever “worth” anything.
$592.67 [cba]
$562.00 [bte]
This thing seem a bit like some of the wild gold rush stories of the later 1800s - but with real time reporting on the internet.
Are they looking to find out who stole them or are they moving in for the kill?
Good analogy! We are witnessing history in the making as far as what's will be used as a medium of exchange. If society doesn't collapse because of what we're using now, and government debt that is.
Crytocurrency might just allow for the people to control the money supply, instead of banksters and their paid for politicians.
Everything is worth nothing without an arbitrary value assigned to it. Gold is only a shiny metal.
Might I suggest you just defined the US Dollar today, not the bitcoin….
you right…and moreover, they were and are traded for real commodities...
This entire venture is nothing more than a crude Ponzi scheme, only worse.. Most frauds are masked with a legitimate intention, perpetrated by folks in positions of trust, that use their positions in legal ventures in entice others, with greedy motives, wittingly or unwittingly, to defraud their own neighbors..
With Bitcoins, the perps find the mask is unnecessary, by just hiding from the get-go.. The beauty of Bitcoin, the investors find it part of the intrigue.. Having no need to identify themselves, they may have conjured up the perfect crime, and never get caught, so they think..
The music in this musical chairs game is winding down, and the only solution is to grab the last chairs, because the end is near..
YAY, regulators to the rescue.
Despite recent suggestions that its top financial bodies would not take any action against troubled bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, Japan’s senior regulators are now saying they would seek to regulate bitcoin, but only as part of an international effort.
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