Bitcoins banned in Thailand

[oakweb]

Is it confirmed anywhere other than the site being up?

[hawker9000]

Mt Gox was one of the "big names" wasn't it? 750,000 coins belonging to customers lost - another 100,000 of its own. 'Worth almost half a billion USD. Tens of millions more in MG debt. That'll be the banner argument against bitcoin for some time to come I suppose. Anybody here lose coins at MG?

[oakweb]

It's hard to believe that by this point there are still people holding their bitcoin stash at these unregulated Exchanges, I keep all mine offline. As far as a "banner argument", there was already other exchanges that went down before and most of us in the community believe that new more responsible and experienced companies will now step in to fill the roles, and you can see that happening now.

I lost nothing at MG since I didn't store any Bitcoin at any exchange except for a few at Coinbase and some Namecoin at BTC-e. Nothing I can't afford to loose.

[Naam]

Mt Gox was one of the "big names" wasn't it? 750,000 coins belonging to customers lost - another 100,000 of its own. 'Worth almost half a billion USD. Tens of millions more in MG debt. That'll be the banner argument against bitcoin for some time to come I suppose. Anybody here lose coins at MG?

i am missing my boat. had it moored at the Mt. Gox marina

[midas]

Mt Gox was one of the "big names" wasn't it? 750,000 coins belonging to customers lost - another 100,000 of its own. 'Worth almost half a billion USD. Tens of millions more in MG debt. That'll be the banner argument against bitcoin for some time to come I suppose. Anybody here lose coins at MG?

How could this young guy who is the CEO have missed the fact that the money was disappearing?

How long to take for this half billion dollars to disappear? no has explained that in the media

When he gave a press conference yesterday he didn't look too upset and in fact he almost looked smug.

[Naam]

Mt Gox was one of the "big names" wasn't it? 750,000 coins belonging to customers lost - another 100,000 of its own. 'Worth almost half a billion USD. Tens of millions more in MG debt. That'll be the banner argument against bitcoin for some time to come I suppose. Anybody here lose coins at MG?

How could this young guy who is the CEO have missed the fact that the money was disappearing?

How long to take for this half billion dollars to disappear? no has explained that in the media

When he gave a press conference yesterday he didn't look too upset and in fact he almost looked smug.

yesterday:

[pancakeman]

Mt Gox was one of the "big names" wasn't it? 750,000 coins belonging to customers lost - another 100,000 of its own. 'Worth almost half a billion USD. Tens of millions more in MG debt. That'll be the banner argument against bitcoin for some time to come I suppose. Anybody here lose coins at MG?

How could this young guy who is the CEO have missed the fact that the money was disappearing?

How long to take for this half billion dollars to disappear? no has explained that in the media

When he gave a press conference yesterday he didn't look too upset and in fact he almost looked smug.

Best guess I've heard is that they probably lost the money a long time ago (ie 2011). Probably made the decision to keep it quiet and figured they could just earn it back over time from the fees. Problem is that the price of bitcoin kept increasing so their position got worse and worse until basically their new deposits could not keep up with the withdrawal requests...classic ponzi scheme at the end.

This is just one of many guesses as too what really happened, but to me this seems the most likely.

[ukrules]

Is it confirmed anywhere other than the site being up?

Yes, there's this letter which was sent out from the Bank of Thailand, it's been floating around on the internet for a couple of weeks now.

[ukrules]

Mt Gox was one of the "big names" wasn't it? 750,000 coins belonging to customers lost - another 100,000 of its own. 'Worth almost half a billion USD. Tens of millions more in MG debt. That'll be the banner argument against bitcoin for some time to come I suppose. Anybody here lose coins at MG?

How could this young guy who is the CEO have missed the fact that the money was disappearing?

How long to take for this half billion dollars to disappear? no has explained that in the media

When he gave a press conference yesterday he didn't look too upset and in fact he almost looked smug.

Best guess I've heard is that they probably lost the money a long time ago (ie 2011). Probably made the decision to keep it quiet and figured they could just earn it back over time from the fees. Problem is that the price of bitcoin kept increasing so their position got worse and worse until basically their new deposits could not keep up with the withdrawal requests...classic ponzi scheme at the end.

This is just one of many guesses as too what really happened, but to me this seems the most likely.

There's plenty more exchanges out there to replace MtGox, getting this huge monolith out of the way will be much better in the long run, especially now we know it was run by some inept guy who either lost or stole all the money and tried to keep it running anyway. He's so delusional he thinks he can relaunch the website !

I hope the creditors make his life hell.

[midas]

Mt Gox was one of the "big names" wasn't it? 750,000 coins belonging to customers lost - another 100,000 of its own. 'Worth almost half a billion USD. Tens of millions more in MG debt. That'll be the banner argument against bitcoin for some time to come I suppose. Anybody here lose coins at MG?

How could this young guy who is the CEO have missed the fact that the money was disappearing?

How long to take for this half billion dollars to disappear? no has explained that in the media

When he gave a press conference yesterday he didn't look too upset and in fact he almost looked smug.

Best guess I've heard is that they probably lost the money a long time ago (ie 2011). Probably made the decision to keep it quiet and figured they could just earn it back over time from the fees. Problem is that the price of bitcoin kept increasing so their position got worse and worse until basically their new deposits could not keep up with the withdrawal requests...classic ponzi scheme at the end.

This is just one of many guesses as too what really happened, but to me this seems the most likely.

There's plenty more exchanges out there to replace MtGox, getting this huge monolith out of the way will be much better in the long run, especially now we know it was run by some inept guy who either lost or stole all the money and tried to keep it running anyway. He's so delusional he thinks he can relaunch the website !

I hope the creditors make his life hell.

It's not the creditors that should be making his life hell? There should be law enforcement officials constantly on his back to establish whether or not he is a criminal?

But I guess with this kind of thing involving encryption etc, he would have covered his tracks very well

Edited March 1, 2014 by midas

[sirineou]

Banned because they can't tax it - no other reason whatsoever.

IMO Bitcpoin is an excellent idea, but as of yet, it has the inherent drawback of no trustworthy entity controlling the quality of the source code.(algorithm) An Algorithm is simply a set of instructions on how the system should operate.

A traditional currency has a set of rules the apply equally to all transactions. and those rules are controlled by a central entity that is, in principle at least, accountable.

In the case of fiat currencies, of which Bitcoin is one, it's value is derived from the trust one has on the controlling entity, in the case of the Dollar , the US central bank.

I profess ignorance in the case of bitcoin, and perhaps, there are those who know, but I don't know of any trustworthy entity controlling the Bitcoin algorithm, that I can trust, and turn to for restitution .

I Think (I don.t really know their reasoning) the Thai central bank has come to a similar conclusion.

I think as problems arise , such as money laundering or the Mt Kox incident, other governments will come to a similar conclusion.

[pancakeman]

There's plenty more exchanges out there to replace MtGox, getting this huge monolith out of the way will be much better in the long run, especially now we know it was run by some inept guy who either lost or stole all the money and tried to keep it running anyway. He's so delusional he thinks he can relaunch the website !

I hope the creditors make his life hell.

He even went out and bought www.gox.com for more than $100,000 like 3 days before they went bankrupt; totally deluded that he was going to "re-brand" after losing ~$400Million in bitcoins...

[ukrules]

There's plenty more exchanges out there to replace MtGox, getting this huge monolith out of the way will be much better in the long run, especially now we know it was run by some inept guy who either lost or stole all the money and tried to keep it running anyway. He's so delusional he thinks he can relaunch the website !

I hope the creditors make his life hell.

He even went out and bought www.gox.com for more than $100,000 like 3 days before they went bankrupt; totally deluded that he was going to "re-brand" after losing ~$400Million in bitcoins...

Yes, that's nuts he should be sent to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. It's either a huge case of hubris or complete mental delusion.

[farang000999]

The biggest Bitcoin exchange went bankrupt with 400m in funds missing...

great news cry the Bitcoin fan boys.

I am wondering if there will ever be any event that is not good for Bitcoin.

Everything is a buying opportunity. Just like when you go to a car dealership or jewelry store.

[brit1984]

The biggest Bitcoin exchange went bankrupt with 400m in funds missing...

great news cry the Bitcoin fan boys.

I am wondering if there will ever be any event that is not good for Bitcoin.

Everything is a buying opportunity. Just like when you go to a car dealership or jewelry store.

after whats gone on recently, with the unexplained disappearance of all those bitcoins from what was supposedly one of the biggest and best known institutions for holding them, and with even the tech savvy nerds / cyber-criminal early-adopters of this new technology getting badly burned, it's difficult to imagine this being something for the average joe on the street to play around with anytime soon... bitcoins are clumsy as a medium of exchange and impractical as a store of value

[farang000999]

yeah and what many don't realize is that debit card swipe fees are not very high... credit card swipe fees are pretty high but the key word is "Credit" those customers would otherwise not be buying today without credit.

[oakweb]

There will be crypto currency from now on, and with the ATM's coming online and the amateurs being replaced by professionals, Bitcoin will remain the leader.

- "Credit card swipe fee's are not very high" - I wish this was true, monthly I give these companies tens of thousands of dollars to do a simple digital transaction, when I process Bitcoin orders it costs me a fraction of what the CC companies charge me

- "Impractical store of value" - well yes, currently it's in it's infancy. Nothing is going to be perfect out of the gate, there will be hiccups.

I don't understand why anyone would have trusted their whole account or any large sum to Gox, or any other company. For me the majority of my coins are in offline storage and will stay that way.

[farang000999]

why did you edit my sentence like that? i said that debit swipe fees are not expensive, because they aren't. it costs businesses like 3 cents.

I said that Credit card fees are HIGH... but the key word is credit... people are buying your products when they would probably not otherwise have been able to.

[oakweb]

Sorry about that Farang, in any case I don't think that Credit Card fee's are too high on the list for why people will come to use Bitcoin, it's up there but there are so many other reasons.

As a merchant, credit card companies collect outrageous fee's. I'm happy to accept Bitcoin, and forego these.

[brit1984]

^ oakweb... i agree credit card fees for merchants are high but you can generally pass these onto the customer (outside of usa where i believe they have some special laws on this to encourage mindless consumption on credit) and the customer can choose to use debit card / cash or pay the fee and use credit card... accepting bitcoins as a merchant isn't free given the price volatility and lack of credible institutions in case something goes wrong or some coins disappear from the system

[oakweb]

Bitpay and Coinbase are reputable companies, and on every sale the Bitcoins are immediately deposited into your bank account as whatever currency you want, thus alleviating the volatility argument.

For a long time the merchant fee's were illegal to be passed on to the customer, you can do this now. But this still does nothing to help with all the other fee's Credit Card companies charge monthly for doing little more then a digital transaction.

[ukrules]

Bitpay and Coinbase are reputable companies, and on every sale the Bitcoins are immediately deposited into your bank account as whatever currency you want, thus alleviating the volatility argument.

For a long time the merchant fee's were illegal to be passed on to the customer, you can do this now. But this still does nothing to help with all the other fee's Credit Card companies charge monthly for doing little more then a digital transaction.

Yes, fees a re a rip off.

Meanwhile I noticed that Kasikorn are now charging me 180 Baht per withdrawal when I use my foreign ATM/debit card instead of 150 Baht - did I miss something.

The price per transaction just went up by 20% ! Greedy bankers

[hawker9000]

Bitpay and Coinbase are reputable companies, and on every sale the Bitcoins are immediately deposited into your bank account as whatever currency you want, thus alleviating the volatility argument.

For a long time the merchant fee's were illegal to be passed on to the customer, you can do this now. But this still does nothing to help with all the other fee's Credit Card companies charge monthly for doing little more then a digital transaction.

Yes, fees a re a rip off.

Meanwhile I noticed that Kasikorn are now charging me 180 Baht per withdrawal when I use my foreign ATM/debit card instead of 150 Baht - did I miss something.

The price per transaction just went up by 20% ! Greedy bankers

From a visiting consumer perspective, in Thailand anyway, ATM/debit cards were never more than a backup solution. Credit cards (for cash withdrawals) never more than an emergency solution. Cash & TCs offer the best end-to-end rates (well, having a local bank account into which you make wire xfrs actually the best). I think it'll be awhile yet before digital currencies are a dependable and ubiquitous option. The Gox debacle didn't help, and fees aren't the only consideration.

[Berkshire]

Seems like an endless string of bad news for the Bitcoin community:

http://time.com/13563/american-ceo-of-bitcoin-exchange-found-dead-in-singapore/

"Autumn Radtke, the American CEO of Bitcoin exchange First Meta Exchange, has been found dead in her Singapore apartment."

Is First Meta Exchange a big player?

[jacnl2000]

Possibly the worlds first bitcoinfarm has been detected on the 2nd of April ( so not the 1th ) in Goirle, in the Netherlands. This illegal farm consisted of 21 computers for mining bitcoins. In the Netherlands mining of bitcoins seems to be allowed as long as you do pay your electricity bills. When taking into account all bills to be paid then no profits will be made ;-)

[hawker9000]

Possibly the worlds first bitcoinfarm has been detected on the 2nd of April ( so not the 1th ) in Goirle, in the Netherlands. This illegal farm consisted of 21 computers for mining bitcoins. In the Netherlands mining of bitcoins seems to be allowed as long as you do pay your electricity bills. When taking into account all bills to be paid then no profits will be made ;-)

I tracked down this story. The miner was stealing electricity - nothing illegal about the bitcoin mining per se. The software for doing it is freely available all over the net. The difficulty factor has risen to a level which pretty much requires specialized CPUs or ASICs, and the better ones are backordered (and not cheap). (You can also rent bitcoin processing time as a service. Criminals are even stealing it from individual users via botnets.) These of course represent an investment, and one which requires reinvestment to keep up with the increasing difficulty factor. Miners can also pool their efforts with others via guilds (also easy to find & hook up with on the net).

You are correct about the power thing but are overgeneralizing. It's hard to make any profit unless using the special-purpose ASICs (unless maybe you're renting and not paying your own power bills, or are sponging electricity in some other manner). Calculators are available to pretty closely estimate what your profits will (or won't...) be ahead of time taking into account equipment cost, computing capacity, current bitcoin difficulty factor, current bitcoin market value, power costs, and time. Large scale/large investment operations can still make money, but it's no longer something that can be dabbled at.

But mining itself is legal almost everywhere, if not everywhere. Some countries prohibit certain transactions involving bitcoin (I don't mean to restart the old debate, but just as an example the internet consensus seems to be that since Feb of this year, what Thailand prohibits is the foreign exchange involving bitcoin inside the country to anything besides the thai baht; only Iceland seems to ban its use almost entirely).

Eventually all 21 million bitcoins will have been mined, and that'll be the end of it.

[ukrules]

Possibly the worlds first bitcoinfarm has been detected on the 2nd of April ( so not the 1th ) in Goirle, in the Netherlands.

There are many 'Bitcoin Farms' out there. Entire warehouses doing nothing but generating Bitcoins on thousands of ASIC boards.

They've been going since last year, nothing illegal about them as they of course pay their bills.

This Netherlands operation is a tiny non event compared the the grand scale of things.