(08-03-2016 04:54 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Who knows how Bitfinex is going to handle the situation for sure, but I think that they run into difficulties if they attempt to mix and match dollars and virtual currencies.

If they mix and match, they can raise the ires of various US governmental agencies in respect to the dollar, for example some exchanges disclose that dollars are protected by insurance, but virtual assets are a different category.

I know that they are in Hong Kong, but sometimes, there will still be US government attempts to get involved if there seems to be shady dealings or poor calculations in respects with dollars and/or US citizens.

I think so too.

(08-03-2016 05:01 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I don't think that it is a sure thing that Bitfinex would be out of business with that level of losses, even though it is a considerable hit on their ongoing viability and solvency... and there may be some potential remedies that could be worked out - that may take several weeks, but who knows in the meantime, the price could crash quite a bit more, but not sure if into the $200s unless the facts turn out to be even worse and no decent resolution. Sure in the meantime, likely negative price pressures absent some clear communication of a resolution and direction forward...

No way they are coming back.

(08-03-2016 05:01 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I don't think that it is a sure thing that Bitfinex would be out of business with that level of losses, even though it is a considerable hit on their ongoing viability and solvency... and there may be some potential remedies that could be worked out - that may take several weeks, but who knows in the meantime, the price could crash quite a bit more, but not sure if into the $200s unless the facts turn out to be even worse and no decent resolution. Sure in the meantime, likely negative price pressures absent some clear communication of a resolution and direction forward...

No way they are coming back.
[/quote]


No way is a pretty high percentage. And, I don't want to get into a battle, but I hope that you are not just talking your books, there.

My head is still kind of reeling from all of this so, I am a bit uncomfortable with some of the facts that we know about what went down and some of the facts that we still not know.

I think that there are a variety of ways that Bitfinex could come make some kind of come back in some form, including outside investors who want to help out... which could take a while to sort out.

Do you recall when GOX went under? There were folks offering to engage in some kind of bail out or buy out of Gox in its perilous state; however, the japanese court did not want to consider such offers - in other words, once GOX was with the Japanese courts, it was too late and those kinds of deals were not within what the court wanted to allow.

Bitfinex is likely not as far gone as GOX was, so there are some possible resolutions that could allow for some kind of operations to continue... whether it is rebranding or whatever.... ..

I understand you are asserting something really low or close to zero as a probability, but I am kind of in the 50/50 territory at the moment, based on what we know that some kind of resolution would be figured out in the coming weeks.. but I could change my mind too, depending on developments.

By the way, I don't really have any problem with you or anyone else working with leverage or margin trading, but I do not touch the stuff. I would rather be comfortable making $10 rather than feeling uncomfortable with odds to make $100 or $200. That's just me, and we have discussed these kinds of differing philosophies before.

Bitfinex has been the 2nd biggest exchange for years now, so they could very well have assets. Also a VC firm like Kraken could buy them.

Thank god I didn't have any btc on btf though.

Why would anyone bail them out for $60m and even if someone did why would anyone ever trust them again? No way.

(08-03-2016 07:05 AM)Tresdus Wrote:  Bitfinex has been the 2nd biggest exchange for years now, so they could very well have assets. Also a VC firm like Kraken could buy them.

Thank god I didn't have any btc on btf though.

second biggest? If we are talking about liquidity for dollars and the amount of volume exchanged, I think that they have been the biggest for quite a while, maybe nearly two years.

(08-03-2016 07:10 AM)Satoshi Wrote:  Why would anyone bail them out for $60m and even if someone did why would anyone ever trust them again? No way.

You are talking like it is an impossible business venture, and if it were to be some kind of charity to get involved with Bitfinex.

Yeah, surely, Bitfinex has tarnished their reputation, and there is likely some issues with their credibility with some of the public, but they are providing a service and they have devolped name recognition and good will - the same would have been true with Gox if someone had taken it over early on after the shutdown, and then figured out some kind of way to make a going forward plan.

It would not be charity, and if they can open back up fairly soon with a solid plan, then a large number of customers are not going to leave them, as you may suspect.

The question has to do with the level of the loss and whether they have either capital to cover it or a sufficient cash flow in to create some kind of going forward plan that keeps them from going under. I am not going to sit here and work out those kinds of details. All I am suggesting is that there are likely a large number of folks or groups of folks that would be willing to consider such a project or joint venture.

Bought 20 @ 521. Ridin the wave

(07-31-2016 05:49 PM)username Wrote:  I have some BTC in Coinbase and seeing they might be unstable where should I move them?

I hear alot of people down on coinbase lately but coinbase seems to be one of the few exchanges who is actually insured. How well that insurance does for us in the case of a hack or something I don't know but they are insured

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/po...e-insured-

By no means suggesting its a good idea to keep them in an exchange but for whatever time they do sit there before or after a sale its good to know.

Can anyone suggest what the best hardware wallet out there is?

Trezor is good.

(08-03-2016 08:36 AM)SunW Wrote:  Bought 20 @ 521. Ridin the wave

I may have mentioned this yesterday or the day before that I tend to get really nervous when the price is adjusting downwards by 10% in a rapid way, and yeah, when it's on its downward trajectory and we get some pretty severe news, like the Bitfinex situation, that causes considerable additional downwards trajectory..,. so we are like down 10% or more and then we get another downward correction of 10% or more..

I think that I may have made a few mistakes in kind of tying up my money because yesterday, soon after seeing the severity of the news, I sold some on Circle at $583.. but then the deposit has not arrived in my bank yet, but then I pretty much bought all those back that I sold at $507 and $509 (with money that I had available in other exchanges, including using Gemini and Circle) - although I was trying to buy some back on Coinbase, too, at $488, but my transaction wasn't going through (and I had some user errors, too)... but anyhow, by the time I was able to buy the price was $507 and $509 respectively, and I used up a large percentage of my available funds in various accounts (with only tiny bits of cushions), because i have to wait for the circle deposit to arrive in my bank - and then I also had some allocated dollar funds prepared for such potential downwards BTC price spikes on Bitfinex, which we know those funds were tied up too (and potentially lost, from what some folks have been suggesting).

The short-term bottom could be in, and Bitfinex is talking about taking measures to go back online in order that specific individuals will be able to see the current status of their balances and which positions are still open.. and presumably restoring trading and withdrawals and deposits, though that could take longer and we will see how they approach the situation.

So, Bitfinex could be going back on line in the coming few days if they can get their shit together that quickly after such a seemingly severe breach, and such severe bad news that could end up being a bit more neutral than the earlier anticipated doom and gloom possibilities that have not been cleared up, yet.

https://bitfinex.statuspage.io/#

(08-03-2016 12:44 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

(07-31-2016 05:49 PM)username Wrote:  I have some BTC in Coinbase and seeing they might be unstable where should I move them?

I hear alot of people down on coinbase lately but coinbase seems to be one of the few exchanges who is actually insured. How well that insurance does for us in the case of a hack or something I don't know but they are insured

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/po...e-insured-

By no means suggesting its a good idea to keep them in an exchange but for whatever time they do sit there before or after a sale its good to know.

Can anyone suggest what the best hardware wallet out there is?

I am not suggesting to trust all of the exchanges either, but yeah people have been quite a bit down on Coinbase in the preceding weeks.. yet I think that there is more various kinds of insurance out there than you may believe - and also when the owners are fairly established folks, they are less likely to attempt to pull shenanigans .. so Circle and Gemini have various kinds of insurance, too... and people frequently talk up the credibility of Kraken with some of their assurances of solvency.

Lots of us recognize exchanges as weak links in the bitcoin ecosystem, and surely there are some decentralized exchange solutions being proposed that are far from operational or liquid and secure... so until the bitcoin space develops some better mechanisms for setting price and providing liquidity, seems that exchanges are going to continue to play a fairly significant role, and some folks have to use them and keep money there in order for them to function in their purposes.

(08-03-2016 12:44 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

(07-31-2016 05:49 PM)username Wrote:  I have some BTC in Coinbase and seeing they might be unstable where should I move them?

I hear alot of people down on coinbase lately but coinbase seems to be one of the few exchanges who is actually insured. How well that insurance does for us in the case of a hack or something I don't know but they are insured

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/po...e-insured-

By no means suggesting its a good idea to keep them in an exchange but for whatever time they do sit there before or after a sale its good to know.

Can anyone suggest what the best hardware wallet out there is?

I use Keepkey: https://www.amazon.com/KeepKey-Simple-Bi...ds=keepkey

I'm still new to the scene, so I find that the user-friendliness is welcome.

(08-03-2016 01:30 PM)booshala Wrote:  

(08-03-2016 12:44 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

(07-31-2016 05:49 PM)username Wrote:  I have some BTC in Coinbase and seeing they might be unstable where should I move them?

I hear alot of people down on coinbase lately but coinbase seems to be one of the few exchanges who is actually insured. How well that insurance does for us in the case of a hack or something I don't know but they are insured

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/po...e-insured-

By no means suggesting its a good idea to keep them in an exchange but for whatever time they do sit there before or after a sale its good to know.

Can anyone suggest what the best hardware wallet out there is?

I use Keepkey: https://www.amazon.com/KeepKey-Simple-Bi...ds=keepkey

I'm still new to the scene, so I find that the user-friendliness is welcome.

thanks for the suggestion, yeah userfriendliness is very important to me.

^^ Plus, it's not that much more expensive than the Trezor and I really like the sleekness of the packaging and design. I've seen the Trezor and although I'm sure it does the job just as well as the Keepkey, it feels really cheap and plasticky.

Recently, my friend has been bringing his Trezor and laptop to buy bitcoin in person through the localbitcoins forum... He's one of those real paranoid types so he likes the fact that he can put the BTC into storage immediately instead of having to store it in a phone wallet first. Makes sense if you're looking to hoard and not trade regularly.

It appears that the Bitfinex status page (and their home page) have updated, to reconfirm that the initial opening up access of their site will merely allow members to review their accounts and all trading, withdrawals and deposits will be halted... with some kind of anticipation that services will be restored (and rolled back out) incrementally.

https://bitfinex.statuspage.io/#

Sure, this does not address their solvency, the extent of damage or their plan for going forward, yet it remains somewhat in their discretion to determine the amount that they disclose in order to keep or maintain member confidence in their solvency.

The odds are looking a lot better in terms of their getting back on line and attempting to carry out some kind of impression of normalcy... and to instill confidence, they are definitely going to have to cover most if not all of the loss of customer funds.. so we will have to see how that plays out, too.

(08-03-2016 08:36 AM)SunW Wrote:  Bought 20 @ 521. Ridin the wave

Got 1000 Ether at $8. My guess is year end, bitcoin will be 900+ and Ether 25+.

(08-04-2016 09:14 AM)SunW Wrote:  

(08-03-2016 08:36 AM)SunW Wrote:  Bought 20 @ 521. Ridin the wave

Got 1000 Ether at $8. My guess is year end, bitcoin will be 900+ and Ether 25+.

Hey SunW. I recall that we had some back and forth discussions in this thread in late 2015 and early 2016, and in that regard, I recall that you had been analyzing bitcoin in comparison to various other asset classes and currencies, so nice to get contributions from RVF guys with some of these kinds of macroeconomic perspectives - and even the potential battle of these competing concepts to figure out where bitcoin may fit into this space.

Since you mentioned Ether first, let me suggest that some Ether direct discussion may be good in this other thread pertaining to bitcoin alternatives.

https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-32992...pid1364519

In some sense there may be some overlap with bitcoin and these various other cryptos, especially for example when we think about earlier this year as Ether prices were rising and while there were multiple proclamations from the Ethereum proponents concerning the supposed demise of bitcoin and ethereum as the supposed bitcoin 2.0... Even though I think some of those talking points were quite bullshit, these kinds of spreading of public ideas do cause market movements that can cause the reality that is being projected.

We do also have to keep in mind that with the recent hardforking of Ethereum, that seems to have turned into a bit of a disaster for them with some suggesting an implosion of the whole Ethereum ecosystem, it remains somewhat of an interesting dynamic concerning the extent to which Ethereums issues may have been severed from bitcoin, while at the same time still bringing attention to the cryptospace and affecting bitcoin. So anyhow, there is Ethereum (ETH), and then now Ethereum Classic (ETC), which is it's own bit of a mess that is probably better discussed in detail in the alternatives thread or even the creation of its own thread if RVF guys are interested because it continues to play out in a very detailed, complicated and surprising ways.

Regarding bitcoin's future price, I still am of the belief that once BTC prices get into passed the mid- $800s, this baby is likely into a pretty heavy upwards trajectory into the $3k to $5k territory. Even though some of you guys may suggest that I am a bit crazy in talking about those really high numbers (or make bullshit accusations that I am attempting to talk my book), I consider that there remain a couple of obstacles in either getting there or how long it takes - and first of all getting into the mid-$800s could take a while and suffer some significant set backs and then once we are there, how is it that we got there, exactly, was it a solid getting there or just a very manipulated and temporary pump and then is there some kind of significant technical (or FUD spreading event) that interferes with the upwards BTC price momentum that would likely result once we get or almost get BTC prices into the mid-$800s.

I just think that we have to see how the price movements play out, and even though there remains decent and solid fundamentals that can cause BTC to get into the mid-$800s, there are also some pretty big players who could affect BTC's pricing matter in either direction - which really keeps the bitcoin space unique and really interesting to watch how it plays out.

Recently, a thread has been created on Reddit to attempt to crowd-source information pertaining to Bitfinex - and we can see that some of their information is NOT very public.... and accordingly, it is possible that some of their agents could fairly easily disappear off the face of the earth, if they wanted to either run away with bitcoins or run away from liabilities...


https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comment...corporate/

(08-03-2016 07:27 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(08-03-2016 07:10 AM)Satoshi Wrote:  Why would anyone bail them out for $60m and even if someone did why would anyone ever trust them again? No way.

You are talking like it is an impossible business venture, and if it were to be some kind of charity to get involved with Bitfinex.

Yeah, surely, Bitfinex has tarnished their reputation, and there is likely some issues with their credibility with some of the public, but they are providing a service and they have devolped name recognition and good will - the same would have been true with Gox if someone had taken it over early on after the shutdown, and then figured out some kind of way to make a going forward plan.

It would not be charity, and if they can open back up fairly soon with a solid plan, then a large number of customers are not going to leave them, as you may suspect.

The question has to do with the level of the loss and whether they have either capital to cover it or a sufficient cash flow in to create some kind of going forward plan that keeps them from going under. I am not going to sit here and work out those kinds of details. All I am suggesting is that there are likely a large number of folks or groups of folks that would be willing to consider such a project or joint venture.

The below twitter thread kind of relates to my above post in which Satoshi and I were posting about the feasibility of Bitfinex soliciting investors.

https://twitter.com/btcWhaleclub/status/...1165100032


I post this mostly in respect to the brainstorming potential of the news rather than to assert that the proposal is actually true. Personally have difficulties with believing the proposal is true at this particular time because to make such a proposal in connection with any reopening would likely create too much doubt concerning their solvency and their handle over the whole situation.

I personally believe that bitfinex needs to come out by creating the impression that they have the whole matter under control, they fixed the security issue, customers are going to be covered and they have a profitable business model going forward. If they come out with less than what I am suggesting, they will run the risk of experiencing a run on the bank (they are going to get some level of run on the bank, but certainly they want to attempt to contain such a tendency or inclination of their customer base).

Below is another Reddit thread that was created by Bitfinex public relations guy ZaneTackett within about the past hour, and it pretty much states that Bitfinex is going to make a more official update tomorrow, but in the meantime, Bitfinex is currently considering a way to socialize losses amongst Bitfinex BTC holders.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/...ch/d64ow17


I don't really have a problem with socialized loss in the sense that Bitfinex would later pay back those "losers"... and I think that it is a bit irresponsible to cause the users to hold the bag...

Sure we are finding out some details, yet we still have to wait for more specifics, which seems to be scheduled to come out tomorrow.

(07-28-2016 10:42 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(07-28-2016 09:15 PM)BBinger Wrote:  So after the ethereum hard fork mess, I guess we can cross off the possibility of anyone sane wanting to hardfork Bitcoin.

I recall last fall that you were suggesting that chances for a Bitcoin hardfork were becoming greater and greater, and us bitcoin HODLers needed to prepare ourselves for such increasing likelihood of a hardfork. hahahaha.. times have changed a bit, no?


Yes, I agree that this Ethereum hardfork fiasco definitely lends evidence to some gambling that bitcoin should not want to employ -

I believe that I read somewhere that before the hardfork, Ethereum had achieve something close to 80% consensus that a hardfork would be the best direction...

In that regard, they kind of disregarded the 20% that were not in agreement, which causes even more momentum for defectors and really justifies that consensus needs to be a hell-of-a-lot higher than 80%-ish in order that dissension is way too small to gain any kind of meaningful momentum..

In this case, ETC, has a fairly reasonable position to at least hold its own for a while and maybe even to continue to gain support, and may successfully receive more and more material and important defections in the coming months.

Even though there are considerable material differences between Ethereum and bitcoin, this ETH hardfork and the ETC dissension is kind of playing out in similar ways as was projected that Bitcoin Core folks were arguing that Bitcoin did not want to experience.. now we see it and we study it and hopefully we learn some lessons.

Well not one that wasn't a scam, and even with the ethereum one there's a lot of insanity floating around wanting to push one. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is notably one of these founts of insanity.

Gotta have perspective, the piece on how these things work happened back in January 2015 well before the "core" developers started their doomsaying on the topic.

RE: Bitfinex, they were a scam in 2013 when their proprietor posted on Bitcointalk in 2013 under the username 2013 and the site just used a clone of the defunct Bitcoinica/Intersango codebase. They are probably still a scam today.

(08-04-2016 08:16 PM)BBinger Wrote:  

(07-28-2016 10:42 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(07-28-2016 09:15 PM)BBinger Wrote:  So after the ethereum hard fork mess, I guess we can cross off the possibility of anyone sane wanting to hardfork Bitcoin.

I recall last fall that you were suggesting that chances for a Bitcoin hardfork were becoming greater and greater, and us bitcoin HODLers needed to prepare ourselves for such increasing likelihood of a hardfork. hahahaha.. times have changed a bit, no?


Yes, I agree that this Ethereum hardfork fiasco definitely lends evidence to some gambling that bitcoin should not want to employ -

I believe that I read somewhere that before the hardfork, Ethereum had achieve something close to 80% consensus that a hardfork would be the best direction...

In that regard, they kind of disregarded the 20% that were not in agreement, which causes even more momentum for defectors and really justifies that consensus needs to be a hell-of-a-lot higher than 80%-ish in order that dissension is way too small to gain any kind of meaningful momentum..

In this case, ETC, has a fairly reasonable position to at least hold its own for a while and maybe even to continue to gain support, and may successfully receive more and more material and important defections in the coming months.

Even though there are considerable material differences between Ethereum and bitcoin, this ETH hardfork and the ETC dissension is kind of playing out in similar ways as was projected that Bitcoin Core folks were arguing that Bitcoin did not want to experience.. now we see it and we study it and hopefully we learn some lessons.

Well not one that wasn't a scam, and even with the ethereum one there's a lot of insanity floating around wanting to push one.

Yeah, I certainly was not intending to mischaracterize any of your representations regarding the bitcoin fork considerations in my attempt to summarize my memory... hahahahaha

I think that in the early days of the proposed bitcoin hardfork, there were quite a few persons giving benefits of the doubt to Gavin and some of the other backers of XT and Classic. Sure, there were accusations from the start asserting that Gavin et al were not acting in good faith, but I think in those early months Gavin had quite a bit of credibility.

On the other hand, I think that subsequently a larger and larger segment of the bitcoin community began to give less and less credit to him and other supporters of either the need for a blocksize limit increase and the way that XT and Classic were proposing to do it. Furthermore, there were more and more contradictions that seemed to be coming out with bigblocker assertions, and Gavin's credibility was undermined a lot more with his apparent lack of scrutiny in his siding with fellow big blocker, Craig Wright.

(08-04-2016 08:16 PM)BBinger Wrote:  Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is notably one of these founts of insanity.

Armstrong is all over the place, and in recent days he seemed to have been engaged in a kind of truce when his exchange was coming under considerable attack for how it was treating the Ether matter - and some of the apparent losses that Coinbase suffered through some of that (right before the Bitfinex attack).

(08-04-2016 08:16 PM)BBinger Wrote:  Gotta have perspective, the piece on how these things work happened back in January 2015 well before the "core" developers started their doomsaying on the topic.

Surely, the various arguments are evolving and they are not going to completely go away. Scaling is an ongoing issue that is never completely resolved, even though there are likely some ways to cause it to have a less explosive and divisive impact during the times that the scaling arguments are presented.

(08-04-2016 08:27 PM)BBinger Wrote:  RE: Bitfinex, they were a scam in 2013 when their proprietor posted on Bitcointalk in 2013 under the username 2013 and the site just used a clone of the defunct Bitcoinica/Intersango codebase. They are probably still a scam today.

Well, they have turned into a bigger fucking scam then.

In about the last couple of years, they have been able to generate (and I think not just fake trading) the largest volume in BTC/USD trading. It is quite likely that the largest trader status will change, but it is certainly not guaranteed.

Currently, I am thinking that if Bitfinex is at least going through the motions to appear as if they are a legitimate exchange, then they gotta come up with a plan that proposes to nearly 100% cover their customers (even if it takes some time into the future to carry it out and even if they have no actual intention to actually carry out the 100% reimbursement).

If they come out with a plan that is less than 100% reimbursement, then they are likely to suffer a considerable risk of a run on the bank - not only in the form of existing account holders but also in terms of potential future account holders deciding to go somewhere else.

There seems to be plenty of skepticism regarding whether Bitfinex was really hacked or if this was just a set up for bitfinex folks to be able to steal some coins. On a personal level, I am considering the evidence to be fairly convincing that the hack that is being described by Bitfinex is appearing to be less and less plausible, and not only would the hack require some insider access, it is kind of seeming like it would almost require the access of one of the highest level Bitfinex insiders... Nonetheless, gotta take a lot of this info with a grain of salt.

Recent discussion of such:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comment...withdrawn/