Bitfloor Indefinitely Suspends Bitcoin Trading 291
PerformanceDude writes "Bitfloor (a New York-based online exchange for Bitcoin) yesterday made the following announcement on their website: I am sorry to announce that due to circumstances outside of our control BitFloor must cease all trading operations indefinitely. Unfortunately, our US bank account is scheduled to be closed and we can no longer provide the same level of USD deposits and withdrawals as we have in the past. As such, I have made the decision to halt operations and return all funds. Over the next days we will be working with all clients to ensure that everyone receives their funds. Please be patient as we process your request. Roman — bitfloor.com" According to the company's Twitter account, money should be returned to users' bank accounts shortly.
A likely story (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like the govenrment finally decided they didn't like money outside their control.
Re:A likely story (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me like they were a US company not following already existing US Anti-Money Laundering regulations.
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For the most part tax evasion actually.
Re:A likely story (Score:5, Informative)
How would money laundering provide tax evasion? The point of money laundering is to convert dirty money (e.g. money gained from selling drugs, gambling, bankruptcy fraud) into clean money that you're "supposed" to have. Clean money by its nature is taxed.
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How would money laundering provide tax evasion? The point of money laundering is to convert dirty money (e.g. money gained from selling drugs, gambling, bankruptcy fraud) into clean money that you're "supposed" to have. Clean money by its nature is taxed.
plenty of money that is dirty is dirty because evaded taxes on it.
I'm not so sure if bitcoin itself is so masterful for money laundering. sure, you can use it to move the cash through it, but you still end up holding the cash you had in the first place with no good explanation of why you had that wealth...
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No, it's actually quite good for it.
Example: Person A with illicit funds buys Bitcoins with said funds. Person A then has associate B place buy orders. Person A then proceeds to sell their Bitcoins to associate B by fulfilling the buy order. Associate B then is able to then turn around and sell to unwitting dupes C through Z, garnering now "clean" cash for person A without person A having to report any of it to tax authorities.
Re:A likely story (Score:5, Interesting)
you still end up holding the cash you had in the first place with no good explanation of why you had that wealth...
There are plenty of reasons to be holding cash that you didn't pay tax on. For instance:
1. Set up a shell corporation in a tax haven (e.g. The Cayman Islands).
2. Transfer your IP assets (patents, copyrights, trademarks) to this corporation.
3. Pay a license fee to this corporation for the use of that IP. Make sure the amount of the fee matches your profits.
4. Pay no income tax, because you have no profit.
5. Borrow the money back from the shell corp. Loans are not considered income and are not taxable.
6. Life a nice life while going deeper and deeper into debt to yourself .
7. Eventually you die, and all the debts are cancelled.
Of course, this is not tax evasion because it is perfectly legal.
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Re:A likely story (Score:4, Informative)
1. Set up a shell corporation in a tax haven (e.g. The Cayman Islands).
2. Transfer your IP assets (patents, copyrights, trademarks) to this corporation.
3. Pay a license fee to this corporation for the use of that IP. Make sure the amount of the fee matches your profits.
4. Pay no income tax, because you have no profit.
5. Borrow the money back from the shell corp. Loans are not considered income and are not taxable.
6. Life a nice life while going deeper and deeper into debt to yourself .
7. Eventually you die, and all the debts are cancelled.
Of course, this is not tax evasion because it is perfectly legal.
This is not true. See IRS Form 5471 [irs.gov]. The rules are exceptionally complex, even by the standards of US tax law, but in general a US person cannot control a foreign investment corporation (such as your Cayman shell corp) and not pay tax on its income, because its income is US income (income from licensing the IP in the US). Loans from a controlled company back into the US to the controller can be considered distributions of income in some circumstances, such as these.
Note - what Google et al are doing in its Irish/Bermuda company is accumulating foreign (non-US) income from intellectual property. This is different.
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2. Transfer your IP assets (patents, copyrights, trademarks) to this corporation.
If the IRS believes you are selling assets to an external entity at well below market value, then you will owe taxes based on what the IRS believes the market value to be.
Simple solution used by many companies: Locate your R&D labs and creative workers outside the USA, so there is no transfer of IP from IRS jurisdiction. American corporate tax policy has been designed to collect almost zero revenue, while simultaneously discouraging the creation of jobs for Americans, thus resulting in less revenue from payroll and personal income tax as well. Is it any wonder that we are broke?
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Not all clean money is taxed, only taxable transactions are.
Money laundering would convert taxable money into non-taxable money - for example, if I had an income of $100,000 from you then some places would charge an income tax, but if I instead took out a loan for $100,000 from you then in most places that's not considered an income and so its not subject to taxation. If I never actually repay the money, I never pay taxes on it. And the added bonus is that in some locales, certain types of loan repayments
Re:A likely story (Score:4, Insightful)
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It is only tax evasion if you don't report it, regardless of the amount or your overall wealth.
Monney Laundering != Out of the government (Score:2)
The two are different orthogonal concept.
The point of Money Laundering is to make so the government loses track of the money.
At the end you still got a standard money which is controlled by a government (USD, EUR, or whatever). But along the way you jumped through so many hoops, and take a so complicated path, that it's not possible for the government to follow the path and have a clear idea where the money came from.
It's about lying and covering your source.
If you want a slashdot-friendly mental image: thi
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You could pretty document every transaction you've performed to you government, and government couldn't do much about it,
If the government knows your bitcoin transactions, then they have all the control they could need or want, as ordinary laws can then cover anything you do with those bitcoins.
And on the other side, bitcoins have some level of secrecy/untraceability built-in.
Not at all. Every bitcoin transaction is announced to the entire network - it's the most traceable currency in history. You can bet the NSA has a database with every bitcoin transaction made starting at some recent point, and in the future will be able to unwind the entire history of any bitcoins in your wallet. What the government
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And they weren't a big bank like HSBC, which was given a slap on the wrist (relative to the illicit profits) for massive money-laundering that benefited terrorist organizations and drug cartels.
I think you missed the key point there. HSBC would never have been able to bribe their way out of such shenanigans unless they were also laundering illicit government transactions.
Re:A likely story (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like the govenrment finally decided they didn't like money outside their control.
Maybe. Or maybe their bank just wasn't comfortable with them. Where I work we sometimes will pass on working with potential customers just because we get a bad business feel for them. Whatever bank they're dealing with may not want to risk being negatively associated in the press with any of a variety of bad things that could potentially happen with this bitcoin exchange if they aren't an important enough customer to justify that risk.
The other thing I think is interesting is the degree to which this matters. The whole point of bitcoin is that it is supposed to be some independent currency. But it seems to rise and fall an awful lot depending on the degree to which you can exchange it for dollars. Which would tend to indicate that it does require backing at some level from dollars.
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It seems to be trading at about $92 USD, which is approximately where it was before bitfloor's announcement.
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It seems to be trading at about $92 USD, which is approximately where it was before bitfloor's announcement.
6 months ago a bitcoin was $5, 6 months before that it was $35. The fluctuation is massive.
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Sounds like the govenrment finally decided they didn't like money outside their control.
lol.. money is the least of it. 'patents', 'power', 'drugs', and 'judicial/legislative/executive' systems also fit that sentence.
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Completely offtopic, but I thought I'd mention that I take issue with your sig (Ignorance is a choice). Ignorance is a not choice, but I do define stupidity as willful ignorance. There is a distinct difference.
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I have to take sl4shd0rk's side: ignorance means willful lack of knowledge, not merely absence of knowledge. You become ignorant by ignoring; ignorance is the state of ignoring; it's just a form of the word "ignore".
Re:A likely story (Score:4, Interesting)
Same happened in Israel 2 weeks ago - all accounts of bitcoin exchange companies were closed until further notice. They didn't even give them a chance to return funds to their customers.
Re:A likely story (Score:4, Interesting)
It would be interesting to see how many people don't want bitcoin to be "controlled" by governments through legal avenues, but at the same time would want the law enforcement agencies to investigate any cases where bitcoin exchanges disappear overnight with their clients "funds"...
Re:A likely story (Score:4, Insightful)
Which, frankly, is a good thing.
Maybe, maybe not.
To be freely tradable this kind of financial product (let's stop that ridiculous "currency" bullshit) requires some type of legal framework that isn't available. If it ever gets it, you could trade bitcoins as easily as shares. But as it stands, and aside from money laundring issues, you could as well prosecute bitcoin trading on the grounds that it is illegal gambling.
Of course, a sound legal framework for bitcoins would most likely make them pointless.
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But as it stands, and aside from money laundring issues, you could as well prosecute bitcoin trading on the grounds that it is illegal gambling.
You appear to have a poor understanding of gambling laws, at least as they stand in the United States. Please provide citations backing your hilarious claim.
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It's not yet a currency, for the reason Forbes pointed out: too much fluctuation in value to have the practical utility required for one. The only legitimate appeal of, or need for, an alternative currency is that it's more stable than government currencies. Maybe bitcoin will be that one day, but that day is not today.
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Right. That's why Disney dollars are outlawed.
Re:A likely story (Score:4, Interesting)
Disney dollars are not real currency, they are coupons.
Try to get disney to convert them back to USD for you.
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The regulators requires that money laundering is kept in check.
Unless it's carried out by HSBC [usatoday.com], in which case the regulators merely require getting a cut.
Clearly this is the work of... (Score:4, Funny)
>> US bank account is scheduled to be closed
Clearly this is the work of the Illuminati Lizard People.
Re:Clearly this is the work of... (Score:5, Funny)
We prefer "Reptilian-American", thank you.
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Down to $90 already, how low can it go? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bitcoin is already down to $90, where is that $1000 bitcoin troll at now?
Money has to at least be a short term store of value. If bread costs twice as much in the evening as it does in the morning no one will want your currency. Bitcoin is not doing well on that front. I am sure all the early folks are cashing out now and laughing all the way to the bank though.
You Answered It Yourself (Score:4, Insightful)
Bitcoin is already down to $90, where is that $1000 bitcoin troll at now? ... [all the early folks are] cashing out now and laughing all the way to the bank though.
Sounds like you just answered your own question.
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You do realize that $90/BTC is still over twice what it was before the bubble, right?
As are those who bought in the after-bubble crash, before the price rebounced to the current level.
Re:Down to $90 already, how low can it go? (Score:5, Informative)
Bitcoin is already down to $90, where is that $1000 bitcoin troll at now?
$1000? If the Bitcoin theory becomes true some day in the future (a huge if) and it were to replace national currencies for the entire world (an even huger if), it might end up valued at more than $3.4 million each (at 2013 valuation). The math is simple. Current global GDP is about $72 trillion, BTCs are capped at about 21 million, hence $72 trillion / 21 million BTC ~= $3.4 million per BTC at cap time. If this were today then people would use it at 6 decimal places (microBTCs) as the day to day currency, equivalent to about $3.40, and the maximum divisibility of 8 places, equivalent to about ~$0.034, as the corresponding "cents", said valuations adjusting upwards (in terms of purchasing power) at roughly 4% per year accompanying the increase in global GDP.
I doubt any of that'll happen though. For one, governments don't want monetary power outside their hands. For another, most economists around are convinced ("convinced" as in "I believe in it from the bottom of my heart!" and "My preferred theorist said so and his equations are so pretty and I have tons of faith in him!") that deflation is evil. And third, drugs, porn, drugs, weapons, drugs, tax, drugs, pedophilia, and won't anyone please think of the children!?
That's not how the money supply works (Score:2)
The money supply does not have a direct relationship to GDP. A high-velocity currency (one that trades hands frequently instead of being stored) will have a low value in relation to GDP. A low-velocity currency would behave the opposite.
When reporting the size of the money supply, you will see references to M0, M1, MB, and M2. They are different ways of measuring the supply and are used for different purposes.
Re:Down to $90 already, how low can it go? (Score:5, Informative)
For another, most economists around are convinced ... that deflation is evil.
Those egghead economists have several good reasons to think that deflation is a problem:
1. It strongly encourages everyone to stuff their money in the mattress rather than spend it. This may seem like a great idea, but without people buying stuff, nobody is needed to make stuff, which means people lose their jobs, so they buy even less, and so on.
2. It means that anyone who is saving is more likely to stuff the money in the mattress than they are to invest it. For example, if cash is gaining value at 1.5% a year, you're less likely to take the risk on an investment with 4% return than you will if cash is losing value at 1.5% a year. Which again causes people to lose their jobs, so they buy less, so others lose their jobs, so they buy less, and so on.
3. Bank lending would grind to a halt, for two reasons: First, banks have to add the deflation into the interest rates of any loans, to account for their opportunity cost compared to just keeping onto the money. Second, borrowers know that they have to repay the loan using progressively more and more valuable dollars, and are rightly concerned that this is a really bad idea.
4. Behavioral research suggests that wages and prices do not deflate as they should - workers have a strong resistance to taking what appears to be wage cuts every year, and businesses have a strong resistance to showing what appears to be lower profits on the same product.
5. People, businesses, and governments who are currently borrowing money get crushed, because their debt becomes progressively more pricey to pay off. That's exactly the problem that was motivating the bimetalism movement back in the 1890's, after the dollar was in deflation for about 2 decades.
It's not just equations: There are several historical examples of deflation, and many of the theorized problems with deflation have in fact turned up.
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Those egghead economists have several good reasons to think that deflation is a problem:
All of these reasons are based on an assumption that simply isn't true: that deflation continues when production stops. It doesn't. Without minimal production, only enough to counterbalance consumption of perishable goods, the amount of goods in the economy represented by the fixed amount of currency doesn't increase, meaning a certain amount of money isn't able to purchase any more tomorrow than it purchased yesterday, hence neither deflation nor inflation. With no production and perishable goods all being
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You do know it went past $250 USD for a while, yeah?
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Closing the bank account of someone not following money laundering laws is not an attack of any kind.
If any of those exchange are going to occur in the US by US based companies the same regulations will apply.
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It was over $200 at one point and Paypal follows money laundering rules.
The bank closed the account to avoid problems, the bank cannot file charges. In a free market they can decide who they want to work with though.
Go sink your money into it if you want, but don't expect to get it back.
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USD or $ is the symbol you want, US$ is nonsensical.
The USD has lost that much value since it started, not in a weekend. Inflation is a good thing, it encourages spending, hoarding wealth is not good for the economy.
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Why? (Score:2)
Why was their bank account closed? Did they break some law or did the bank just take offense to them?
What's is the story here?
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
What's is the story here?
This is Slashdot: The story is "bitcoin something something".
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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It might be worth noting that this happened not long after the US government announced that people exchanging real currency for virtual currencies like bitcoins are within the scope of existing reporting and other regulations designed to prevent and identify money laundering, in many of the the same ways that other entities moving and exchanging real currency are.
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If you think the USA doesn't like free-for-all of money laundering you should read up on HSBC and [nbcnews.com] Bank of America [policymic.com]. Sure, money laundering is a "crime" and stuff but prosecuting it? The problem with Bitcoin is that no one is bribing congress.
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True, that's what makes it a real free-for-all, no bribes.
Blanks. Fill them in. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it me or is that the most understated sentence ever written?
Re:Blanks. Fill them in. (Score:5, Funny)
Well in fairness to them, it sounds a lot better than "we decided to hop on the bitcoin-ponzi-scheme bandwagon and it bit us in the ass."
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In what way is it a Ponzi scheme? The end game of a Ponzi scheme is new investors get nothing. BC still has value.
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Just because an investor ends up losing money, that doesn't mean it's a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme requires fraud where the money coming in is being used to pay out older investors rather than being used to purchase claimed assets. If the assets are purchased but become worthless that's not a Ponzi scheme. People who invested money in Hostess lost it when they went bankrupt. That doesn't mean Twinkies were a Ponzi scheme.
So when is Slashdot (Score:3)
going to indefinitely suspend its bitcoin stories?
Re:So when is Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Never. Why on earth would it? Crypto-currencies are a fascinating concept and Bitcoin is one of the greatest experiments ever. Whether it ultimately succeeds or fails is irrelevant, it will be written into the history books forever.
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When I read that, cryptozoology [wikipedia.org] ("a pseudoscience involving the search for animals whose existence has not been proven") was what sprang to mind...
this happened before (Score:2)
Bitcoin is a speculative commodity, not a currency (Score:2)
In this sense it's like Gold, except:
* probably more vendors take BitCoin than gold as payment (i.e. both gold and BitCoin have some value as a currency/barter, and BitCoin may actually have more, but neither is primarily a currency)
* You can't make jewelry, do dental work, or make Monster Cables with BitCoin (i.e. unlike the shiny metal, it has no inherent value)
Take a look at it from the other side (Score:2)
USD = fiduciary money. Bitcoin = non-fiduciary, just like gold. Und just like with gold, bankers hate it when you deal in non-fiduciary currency. The influence of banks upon national governments being so scandalously high these days, this news is not so surprising: banks thrive on fiduciary currency only. Or, to quote Jefferson:
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their curren
They hate it because it's a pain (Score:2)
Banks don't hate BitCoins (or gold) because it's non-fiduciary... it's because it's a Pain In The Ass to deal with. Banks are more than happy to let an independent entity (as in, not them) deal with BitCoin transfers and storage if they so choose. Agreeing to accept deposits in BitCoins (which due to their volatility are currently utterly incompatible with fractional reserve banking) is a task that would earn them only tiny transaction fees... it's simply not worth the bother.
I suspect it was transaction reports... (Score:3)
I suspect it was Transaction Reporting requirements, along with Know Your Customer regulations that did them in. The government doesn't care if you are shoveling Benjamins, BitCoins, Euros, Pesos, or British Pounds, across the counter or over the wire... if you want to trade in heavy quantities of Cash or Cash Equivalents, you have to comply with money laundering laws. If their bank felt they could not keep the account open and still comply with those laws... ker-chop!
Did the fact that BitCoins were being traded have something to do with it? You bet. But they would have been equally eager to shut down an operation dealing with physical currency and numbered accounts... they don't like anonymiity combined with large volumes of untracable cash.
Before everyone goes all conspiracy theory... (Score:2)
Maybe they just decided they can't make money on this?
Despite their recent problems, it looks like Mt.Gox is back online...they claim to handle over 80% of BC trade...
Let me predict the future (Score:3)
Sometime within about 1 year from now, someone is going to hack bitcoin. Either
a) The goal will be simply to destroy it and render it worthless.
or
b) The hackers will make a lot of money before bitcoin in rendered worthless. Before anyone realizes what is going on and can stop the hackers, bitcoin will have been ruined.
The end result in both is that bitcoin will be rendered worthless. This attack or hack will be in a way that nobody saw coming, but after the fact everyone will slap themselves in the head and think "How did we not realize that this was possible?" I am not claiming to have any idea how this will all happen. I simply predict it will happen.
When this happens, people like me, Steve Forbes and others will say "Told you". The "true believers" (the anti-government nut jobs) will erroneously conclude that the entire idea was perfect and if they only fix the specific nature of the attack that destroyed bitcoin, then bitcoin2 will be able to start up and it will never, ever be compromised. Right.
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There are two possible candidates for such an attack:-
1. A rouge mining pool or collection of pools decide to implement a 51% attack. The most popular Bitcoin pool (BTCGuild) curre
Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no conspiracy here. No one cares about this toy money. They broke already existing federal anti-laundering laws so this happened. They could have followed the law and been able to stay open.
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PayPal and Facebook broke those laws for a long time too. The only difference between Bitcoin and PayPal is that "nobody owns" Bitcoin, do it can't claim the government is damaging business.
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How did facebook do that?
Paypal I think has a good handle on those. They are pretty strict, too strict even, about large transfers.
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They could have followed the law and been able to stay open.
Like HSBC?
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Too big too fail.
If you get big enough you can get away with anything.
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I find it curious that you post so much BS to Bitcoin threads that I actually recognize your handle at this point.
No one cares about this toy money.
Even a speculative bubble doesn't hit $90 if "no one cares" about the underlying asset. Quite the opposite - So many people have an interest in Bitcoin, whether legitimate or speculation, than its market capitalization last week qualified it as a mid cap (and it still plays in the same ballpark despite the post-$250 sell-off
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Go research the highs and lows of some beanie babies - then tell me how beanie babies are a legitimate currency with a market captalization etc etc etc.
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No one would care.
It would only hurt themselves. It would be an improvement to society at large to stop wasting valuable resources on this.
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Whoosh!
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It'll recover, and burst again, and so on...
I've been thinking about setting up a program to algorithmically trade bitcoins for me...seems easy enough to buy low and sell high, it's just a matter of watching the prices and being patient (two things I don't have time for, thus the program).
Say I write a program that will do some calculations and then place an order for some bitcoins, or sell some that I have. Is there a program out there that can handle the execution of these trades through some kind of API
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You’re making a lot of assumptions. Like, BitCoins will tend to go up in value over your time period (be it in days or years). That you will actually be able to execute on a displayed priced – before everybody else does.
Suggestion - find (and read up on) a arbitrage opportunity. For example, a US dollars / BitCons / Eurs / US Dollar trade should net you zero dollars less fees – but does it? I have heard of times that it has not and could be taken advantage of. Also, try to find somebody w
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I'm not planning anything too fast so the speed of executing a displayed price shouldn't be a big issue - I might even have it "measure stability" before executing a trade. Yeah I'm assuming it won't just go off a cliff and never recover but I won't put money into it that I can't afford to lose.
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Algorithmic trading (or "program trading") doesn't require a computer, or fast execution, merely an algorithm. There are profitable algorithmic trading strategies for the stock market, but there aren't any old ones. You can game the market, but eventually someone games your gaming of it.
And the big investment banks at one point hired the majority of math PhDs in America to do just that for stocks. Goldman probably still has a few around to throw at this problem, so act fast if you're going to. If bitcoi
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You’re making a lot of assumptions. Like, BitCoins will tend to go up in value over your time period (be it in days or years). That you will actually be able to execute on a displayed priced – before everybody else does.
Suggestion - find (and read up on) a arbitrage opportunity. For example, a US dollars / BitCons / Eurs / US Dollar trade should net you zero dollars less fees – but does it? I have heard of times that it has not and could be taken advantage of. Also, try to find somebody who knows something about program stock trading – which is basically what you are doing. (and stay away from those green arrows / red arrows FX trading programs you see on TV)
Excellant points. One of the problems with bitcoins is there is no assurance of liquidity; unlike many other commodities or real currencies. For arbitrage to work you have to be able to buy and sell when you want so you can take advantage of the opportunity; ideally at the same time so you never really put any of your money at risk. Bitcoin, OTOH, operates on the well known "greater fool" theory that drives many speculative bubbles such as tulips. You hope someone somewhere will pay more for it than you did
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I have tweaked my position a little – see my post below on volatility.
The main thrust of this this argument (or what is should have been) is that there are other trades out there. The less sophisticated out there tend to be the chum for the sharks. BitCoins may have a bit of an advantage because it is new, so fewer sophisticated players.
As to your points – I would mark that down to a risk and complexity problem. Give yourself wide margins and enough cushion to allows for many, many fails. Most p
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That's HFT, or at least the principal. Economically we allow HFT because each of your trades will be with somebody that needs to move bitcoins. That actually helps the system because they don't have to wait when they need to exchange. Get enough people doing it and it prevents big swings when big spenders try breaking things.
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I'm not planning on high-frequency stuff specifically. I'd set up the program to trade quickly if it would be profitable, but I don't plan on putting any emphasis on speed and certainly not trading at speeds where lag becomes a factor.
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In the long run, it is really hard to beat the market.
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I'm sure I'm not the first to think of it, I bet there are programs out there to do it already but this is something I'd rather code from scratch.
I know it'll be a complex program but I'd start out using a very conservative algorithm and trading with amounts I can afford to lose.
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That is not what is hard – it is the volatility that will kill you. The higher the volatility the lower the returns.
IRRC, the US Stock market averages a 10% return a year. However, you should not care about average returns, you should care about geometric returns (i.e. holding the asset over multiple periods.) As volatility increases geometric returns decrease. So, the stock market has a standard deviation of 7% to 10% which knocks down the geometric return to 7% - if the stock market was normally d
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Dollar cost averaging is great (and I did mention it’s cousin, regular rebalancing) – but your point is a bit off base.
One of the underlying assumptions of dollar cost averaging is that you are investing in a productive assets that grows with time. Sometimes you are buying too high, sometimes you are getting a steal by buying too low, but you are always buying productive assets. It is a simple discipline that counteracts the unproductive emotional habits of people pilling money into and out of t
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Interesting. Is there any API shared between multiple exchanges yet or are they all doing their own thing? I guess this one is the most popular, belonging to MtGox.
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Thought I'd update to answer my own question, this program already interacts with multiple exchanges using the best access methods available:
https://github.com/vbmithr/breakbot [github.com]
Re: Bubble (Score:2)
Bitcoin has always seemed to be subject to being controlled by market makers. The technique was a common way to make money in the stock market just before the great depression. Big money would buy up large blocks of stock, then start talking up how the price was going up. Rumors would circulate that some stock was "taking off" and the average investor would look at historical stock prices and pile on. In the mean time, the big investors would start slowly selling their holdings making huge profits and l
Re: Bubble (Score:4, Interesting)
Bitcoins are backed by the utility of being able to send them between people without having to deal with any third parties. They present the value of everything that can be bought with Bitcoins; as that set is slowly growing, so is the value of Bitcoin. It's a classic network effect.
To bet on Bitcoin is to bet that PayPal, Visa, and banks will continue screwing their customers, which seems like a pretty safe bet.
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Usually the government sends a phonebook of paperwork first... With "comply or close" on the cover.
Guy is choosing to close cause he can't possibly meet the demands. This is how "industry insiders" stay ahead.. With rules so complex it takes 40 people to follow them. With computers though it takes 40 people if you have 1000 accounts or 10,000,000.
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