Bitcoin / Bitcoins / Crypto Currency

You wan som coin man, I fix you up with top dolla coin bro

so two possible outcomes.

mt gox don't fix the problem and lock down the site forever = bitcoin values plummet.

mt gox do fix the problem and open up the site = sellers flood the market to move exchanges and bitcoin values plummet.

Can't see any reason to buy from localbitcoin dealers at their current price.

those are not the only options

Maybe not the only options.. but its what happened.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2100100/mt-gox-bitcoin-price-falls-below-100.html

Good to see the local price of bitcoin reflecting the increased liquidity as a healthy functioning market should.

I am buying aggressively if it goes down to £300

I'm considering buying some gox coins from https://www.bitcoinbuilder.com/ It's a 3 for 1 sale but you could end up with a dodgy item.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-23/bitcoin-prices-slide-after-mtgox-ceo-resigns-foundation-board

and two alternate views from the comments

I might buy bitcoin @ $1 USD.
Actually, no I won't. Bitcoin has now fully been identified & targeted by governments as the leading exchange medium for criminal enterprise via the web, and a recent article laid out how btc essentially was a tool to transfer & launder money gleaned from credit card, banking & general identify theft fraud.
Anyone who believes governments & their taxing authorities are not going to mount the mother of all crackdowns on this medium, and all others like it, is incredibly naive.
Yeah, yeah - Satoshi, unbreakable code, blah blah

and

Haha you dumb fucks. Yes, of course the governments will try and go after Bitcoin..... and they will fail miserably. I predict it completely backfires on them and shows the world just how powerless they are (against online math puzzles).

Actually, no I won't. Bitcoin has now fully been identified & targeted by governments as the leading exchange medium for criminal enterprise via the web,

If you think that one is safe with BTC one is missing things. Its very easy for the US government to shut down BTC should it pull out the RICO card. I recall a good discussion a few years ago on the mathematical models being used to pull money laundering needles out of the bank transaction haystack. BTC is, by comparison, simple given its size and volume. Its, I think, estimated that there are no more than 100K transactions per day over at most 150K different addresses so its still a comparatively easy subject of study.. Players in developing fraud detection technology like Alaric are already, I think, deep in modeling.. Their models are focused on the assumption that government want to keep Bitcoin around and so with an increasing demand for fraud detection tools.. Personally I don't think its a binary decision.. but I have little doubt that the finger in on the legal trigger... Yes there is a lot of money in Bitcoins for the large banks which can exploit their size and calm the waters with regulation...

You seem to be forgetting Bitcoin isn't US-centric so the yanks can do whatever they want and BTC carries on outside their realm. I'm not even sure the RICO act can be used for BTC since purchasing a pizza is hardly racketeering.

But think of the mafia behind all those pizza parlours.

Racist

but still

funny cos its true

Family Guy - Speaking Italian - YouTube

Sent them a scan of my passport = rejected because black & white (what difference that makes to confirming my ID not sure)
Sent them a utility bill = rejected because a month old (i only get billed quarterly)
Sent them a proof of image photo = rejected because of quality
Sorry but noones passport is the size of their head?

Bitcoin definitely gets more interesting when you look at its wider implications rather than simply looking at it in terms of fluctuations in value

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/02/15/bitcoin-platform-currency/#!wXJq0

above article is a bit techno optimist, but does give a flavour for how it's potentially driving change

is there anything i can mine for with my pc ?
can i have an app ticking away in the background churning over cash albeit small amounts ?
i know btc is too complex now for a simple computer or not worth it ?

Ltc?

I'm still not sure if it's actually profitable once you factor in the additional electricity costs.

really, are the margins that small ?

in the early days it would have worked. Now you need specialised hardware, and it's unlikely to make it's money back before it's redundant.

but what about the NEXT crypto currency ?

oh i see what you mean
even new ones are jumped on and mined quickly and profitably by people who know what they are doing ?

I don't know. I looked into it briefly to run from our work PCs as my boss got all excited at the prospect of making loadsamoney. A few of the threads I found said it wasn't that worth it. I think part of that may have been down to the fluctuations in the currency, but ymmv.

Re bitcoin and money laundering, imo it all comes down to the politics. All the major banks have to be involved in money laundering at some level. Crackdowns only happen when there's a political need - see HSBC.

oh i see what you mean
even new ones are jumped on and mined quickly and profitably by people who know what they are doing ?

The complexity of mining goes up as more are mined. So every bit coin is slightly harder to mine.

That means it takes a bit longer, or requires more power.

So it's always a losing battle.

ah ok, so maybe i can restate then, what about the next one ? you mention bit coin above maybe there are other algo's being written for a new generation of some new coin

other people organisations must be looking into the possibilities of this as a way to move cash / accept payments ?

Mining has community benefits too. The more people who mine, the more secure the future of the blockchain is as far as I understand it.

You seem to be forgetting Bitcoin isn't US-centric so the yanks can do whatever they want and BTC carries on outside their realm.

Your underestimating the clout of the US in financial markets. The reality on the ground right now is in many countries on this planet Americans are not allowed to open anything more functional than the most basic Giro account.. and European banks fearing getting booted out of the US economy provide as much information to the US as they can get through their national courts.. and its goes far far beyond the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP).. Go ask the UBS how they feel... and RBS? They too have been slapped about..

I'm not even sure the RICO act can be used for BTC since purchasing a pizza is hardly racketeering.

If its purchased with laundered money it is.. Pizza is perhaps not an issue.. But what about motorcars? Homes? Jewerly.. and even the small items if the volume gets high enough can be used for money laundering.. Donuts and ice cream anyone? And there are ties in to terrorism.. like kebab shops laundering money for Hezbollah (and its not just all Lebanese drug money)...

Your first paragraph has nothing to do with Bitcoin.

Your second paragraph is wrong. Yes, it's possible to use Bitcoin for illegal means but it's possible to do the same with cash. So what? It's not the currency that is hold to task it's the person using the currency illegally.