SecondMarket is believed to have now ~96 kBTC. They bought ~10 kBTC in February, ~13 kBTC in March, and sold a net couple of hundred in April. (They just started allowing the first investors to liquidate.  They should have sold at least 3 kBTC this month, but then bought nearly as many as people apparently (re)invested.)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=337486.0

Thanks! However, in his Coindesk interview (well before the Caixin rumor), Huobi's CEO said they had been planning this move for some time.

The rumor may have spurred them to do it earlier than they had planned.  BTC-China too created "international accounts" a week ago.

Let's see what will happen.  I would think that most of their domestic customers would be unwilling or unable to move to the overseas platform.  So, if the rumor turns out to be correct, the price may still drop some more around April 15.





 

Ponzi schemes have been outlawed in many countries because most people who entered them were misled by the organizers with promises of high profits, and were unaware that the schema would inevitably collapse, so that their  expected profit was actually negative.


Good for her... but what about the guy who bought from her at above 1000 in December?  He too was told it was a good investment, but lost more than 55,000 € at this point...

I canot read Greek either, I used Google Translate.

I can't find any new news about Neo & Bee in local papers.  The news I found are the same as last week, and some even cite this forum as source.  Eg:
http://www.philenews.com/el-gr/top-stories/885/193098/enopion-astynomias-katangelies-gia-neo
However they seem to confirm that the staff has quit.

I tried to find recent news from China by Googling  "04月09日" "比特币" and using Google Translate.  I cannot tell for sure, but it seems that they are still uncertain about the bank account closure on April 15; no denial, no cofirmation from the PBoC.

However MtGOX is still regularly mentioned in the Chinese bitcoin news.  It seems that the Central Bank of Japan too declared that bitcoin is not a currency.  (But please check, I may have misunderstood, or the news may be old.)

I don't know how many bitcoins they coud mine, but there are several hundred million Android smartphones out there.

This news is ~10 days old, but may interest someone:

  Bitcoin Mining Malware Infecting Android Smartphones
  http://www.cellular-news.com/story/Handsets/65154.php

Chinese Slumber Method prediction for Wednesday April 09

Prediction valid for: Wednesday 2014-04-09, 19:00--19:59 UTC (not before, not after)
Huobi's predicted price: 2808 CNY.
Bitstamp's predicted price: 456 USD.


Plot legend

This last data point was rather weak (S = 0.0055, W = 0.545) but, with the previous one, allows us to assume a straight line trend A + B*(d-d0), where d-d0 is the number of days since Apr/07, A = 2782, B = 13.

The Bitstamp prediction, as usual, is the Huobi prediction divided by the currency conversion factor R, which was assumed to be 6.16 CNY/USD (it was 6.16, 6.15, 6.23 at the last three Slumber Times).
 
Checking the previous prediction

Prediction was posted on: Tuesday 2014-04-08, 01:55 UTC
Prediction was valid for: Tuesday 2014-04-08, 19:00--19:59 UTC (~17 hours later)

Another easy hit:

Huobi's predicted price: 2782 CNY.
Huobi's actual price (L+H)/2: 2795 CNY
Error: 13 CNY (~2 USD)

Bitstamp's predicted price: 452 USD.
Bitstamp's actual price (L+H)/2: 454 USD
Error: 2 USD
 
NOTE: "A man with a new idea is a crank until he succeeds." --Mark Twain

Excellent!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_la_Palice

You keep assuming that the threat would come from some external Dark Force that wishes to destroy bitcoin and will try to sabotage the network against the will of the "good" miners.  That is not what was thinking of.

(But since I have never used bitcoin, what could I know about that.)

Not really.

The skeptics and their governments may ban bitcoin from commerce and finance, but that is not what I meant.  The skeptics may define the environment, but it is the miners who will ultimately decide how bitcoin will evolve.  Not Satoshi, not the Shrem Karpeles & Friends Foundation, not the speculators, not the hoarders.

[fud]
So, what will Greed whisper to the miners' ears?
[/fud]

Correct -- but WHOSE consensus?

[fud]
We will see. Who are those that ultimately will decide the future of bitcoin?

(Hint: it is neither the Government, nor the banks, nor Wall Street -- nor the owners of bitcoins.)
[/fud]

Greed is blind and dumb, it will eat its own children when they get fat enough.

Greed is hurting bitcoin, that is why it is bleeding.  It was greed that attracted all the scammers and thieves that now surround it. It s greed that makes otherwise smart people forget prudence, turn off reason, and trust their money to those scammers, time and time again.

Greed breeds greed.  Greed sustains not only bitcoin, but also the altcoins: "Why should I invest in bitcoin, and help Satoshi & friends steal from my wealth, if I can create my own coin, and steal wealth from those who use it?"

Greed may even destroy bitcoins most praised quality, its planned scarcity.  I don't  see what could prevent that.

Chart sites like bitcoinwisdom use the official exchange rate (now 6.19 CNY/USD) when converting CNY to USD for Chinese sites.  However arbitragers seem to use their own rate which is slightly lower (between 6.05 and 6.15, usually), meaning that their equilibrium has a slightly higher USD price.  May have to do with fees, perhaps.

A bank audit relies on the fact that banks must maintain detailed and redundant internal records, kept in different places by many people, in order to prevent internal fraud against themselves, and in order to satisfy various government agencies (IRS, FED, SEC, etc.).   Banks and other corporations also have records that are outside their control (such as tax filings, invoices and receipts,  transaction records from other banks, etc.)  A serious audit will check those records by random sampling.

I don't know about stock exchanges, but registration (and the fact that all bitcoin exchanges and stock markets still avoid it) must mean something.

Since the company can move assets from one form to another, a  serious audit covers all assets and money flows of the company at once.

While the balance, transactions, and ownership of a bank account are supposed to be confidential information protected by law, that information is available to many bank workers, and can easily be obtained by law enforcement.  Thus there is no fundamental reason why auditors should be prevented from seeing and checking it.  Like lawyers and physicians, they are bound by professional ethics, contract, and law to keep that information confidential. 

There cannot be meaningful audits of bitcoin exchanges unless they are either strictly regulated (which includes keeping standardized and tamper-proof records of all their money and crypto activity) under penalty of law, or fully transparent (meaning that their entire account and transaction databases, including owner identity and deposits/withdrawals, is available at all times).  I do not see any chance of either happening... 

I came into the theater when the movie had already gone through three plot changes.  Maybe that is why I am still confused about who are the heroes and who are the villains.   

+100

Log is usually appropriate, since price is not as important for trading as percentage variations.  In log scale, a 10% rise or fall will be a step of the same height, whether the price is 10$ or 10,000$.  If price climbs at a steady % rate per year (that is, exponenially, A*Q**t), it will be a straight line on a log plot.

On the other hand, certain phenomena are best modeled by a shifted exponential (A*Q**t + B), that will not look straight in a log scale plot. 

For small percentage changes, log and linear will look almost the same.