Free marketeers take note: the bitcoin debacle is also what an unregulated market with no controls looks like. Actual markets have circuit breakers and shut down in an orderly manner for predetermined amounts of time when prices fluctuate beyond a given level.
Bitcoin apparently had no need for such foolishness because they are robust libertarian anarchists with no need for such intrusive trifles. Sure, commodities and currencies sometimes plummet in price. But bitcoin’s complete lack of internal controls accelerated the process.
MtGox, which handles 80% of all Bitcoin trades, has stopped trading temporarily (supposedly.) Oh, bitcoin may stagger on a bit. But when it re-opens there will no doubt be more panic selling
Bitcoin was falling early before MtGox decided a 12-hour halt was necessary (though other exchanges show prices under $40 at their worst) – we only hope this ‘temporary’ halt is not as temporary as Cyprus capital controls.
Bitcoin is dead, stick a fork in it.
There may well be new versions of bitcoin, backed by serious money from people who might actually know what they’re doing. And who aren’t anonymous.
Now mainstream investments in the digital money are starting to emerge. On Thursday, a group of venture capitalists, including Andreessen Horowitz, announced that they were funding a bitcoin-related company, OpenCoin.