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BitCoin Value Collapses, Possibly Due To DDoS

hydrofix writes "The Bitcoin-to-USD exchange rate had been climbing steadily since January 2013, from around 30 USD to over 250 USD only 24 hours ago. Now, the value bubble seems to have burst, at least partially. The primary trading site MtGox reported a drop in value all the way down to 140 USD today, a loss of almost half in real value. With many sites unreachable or slow, there are also news of a possible DDoS attack on MtGox: 'Attackers wait until the price of Bitcoins reaches a certain value, sell, destabilize the exchange, wait for everybody to panic-sell their Bitcoins, wait for the price to drop to a certain amount, then stop the attack and start buying as much as they can. Repeat this two or three times like we saw over the past few days and they profit.'"

3 of 605 comments (clear)

  1. Get your numbers right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Today's high was $266, the low was $105 and currently it is trading around $180

  2. Re:Well the ultimate value of Bitcoin is by dhalsim2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    You mean the renminbi. _A_ yuan is the unit of _the_ renmimbi currency in the same way that _a_ dollar is the unit of _the_ dollar currency.

  3. Re:Well the ultimate value of a dollar is by dkleinsc · · Score: 5, Informative

    The government and the bank cartel known as the Federal Reserve can and do print insane amount of money every year to finance government spending, at the expense of the value of every other dollar in existence.

    That is at least as questionable claim. The "insane amount of money" that the Federal Reserve "printed" (actually, just enters a number in a computer, but never mind that) was about $280 billion in 2012. Now, that's obviously not a small chunk of change, but it's not even remotely close to funding the $1,126 billion deficit in federal spending in that same year. Where most of that deficit spending money is actually coming from is private investors happily buying up US Treasury bonds (at very low interest rates to boot), which is probably caused by (a) investors fleeing Europe, and (b) record high profits for businesses and their owners that has to go somewhere.

    Also important to think about: Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush spent more during their administrations (as a % GDP) than Barack Obama did in 2010-2 (2009 was a year he only had partial control over budget-wise), and is currently projected to go lower. The reason deficits are so high right now is that tax receipts are the lowest they've been (again, as a % GDP) since 1945.

    --
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