I've heard that before. Can you explain where the BTC are if the bot actually purchased them with fake money? I've never seen any explanation proving that Gox ever had those actual BTC.
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Here is a scenario: since sometime in 2013, when the demand in China starte to rise, someone at MtGOX bought 800'000 of coins from other customers, mostly 10% above market, with imaginary money.  He sent the coins to China, selling them there for yuan.  The plan was to get the yuan converted to dollars and deposit the latter at MtGOX, to make good on those purchases.  The PBoC decrees however made that impossible (or someone embezzled the money on the way).

I did not say that it was real money.  In fact, that is my explanation too for what happened to those 660'000 BTC.

Obviously, trading fees inhibit trading.  People cannot have high-frequency robots exploiting every 0.2% increase in price if the trading fee is 0.5%.  But, are those micro-trades "fake"? 

One evidence that Huobi's volume is not fake is that it drops to nearly zero between 02:00 am and 05:00 am, local time; except when Great Things are Afoot and trading goes on through the night.  It also drops on major holidays when banks are closed.  (Admitted, it is only weak evidence, since those patterns could be faked too.)  OKCoin had the same daily pattern, but trading dropped to only ~10% of the daytime volume.  That 10% could be fake volume, or fully automated robots, or clients outside  China.

If there is a choice between one exchange with trading fees and one without, clients -- especially high-frequency traders (HFTs) -- will generally choose the latter.  When BTC-China added fees, its volume seems to have moved to OKCoin and Huobi.

My understanding was that the Chinese exchanges never promised to abolish the 0% fees.  In their joint statement in early May, they had pledged to end margin trading and curb HFT, as well as stop marketing bitcoin.  I don't think that they were specifically ordered to so so by the regulators (who were more concerned with AML/KYC issues).  Rather, I understood that their less-sophisticated traders were unhappy and losing confidence.  However, it is possible that those customers who lost money complained to the government, compounding to its pressure.

According to an interview with Bobby Lee, a couple of months ago, it seems that some of those exchanges later broke their pledge and reinstated margin and/or HFT.

Since about Oct/10, BTC-China's volume has been comparable to what it was in Nov 2013 (~50--60 kBTC/day). 

During the Nov bubble, OKCoin was ~30 kBTC/day, Huobi ~20, MtGOX ~25, Bitstamp ~20, BTC-e ~20, Bitfinex ~5.

After the december decrees, BTC-China they lost nearly all their volume, while Huobi and OKCoin grew.

The November bubble cannot have been solely a MtGOX internal mega-pump.  There is a plausible explanation for it, which is the opening of the huge Chinese mainland market of amateur speculators.   That demand required huge arbitrage activity, buying hundreds of thousands of coins in the "Western" exchanges (including MtGOX) and selling them to speculators and holders in China.  Arbitragers (which were probably exchange owners) must have made tons of money that month. Willy was probably the buying end of an arbitrage pump at MtGOX, the selling end being perhaps at BTC-China. 

I have not seen any conclusive news on that.  @BurtW (?) had submitted a FOIA request but I do not know whether it was answered.

My guess is that it was somewhat below market (<600$).  My only argument: if he had paid above market, he would have disclosed the price, to pump it up.

It was on June 27.  There was no clear effect on price.

The rise by ~10% on July 3 may have been due to the rumor that the auction closed well above market and/or that Draper did not intend to sell the coins on the exchanges.  But the drop by ~10% on June 10 may have been due to fears about the auction.  

Still some years to go... 

Is the Nevada Desert in Illinois?

Yes, my speeches at the faculty meetings usually have that kind of effect. 

Honey badger is Chinese.  Honey badger doesn't give a damn about Winkles, SEC, COIN.

Thanks, but all the merit should go to the Winkles and to the author of that linked post. 

So the Winklevoss twins did not even mention the COIN ETF at Money 20/20, is that right?

I suppose that there are restrictions about what one can say in public about an ETF before it is approved by the SEC.  But they did talk a lot about it before, e.g. on BloombergTV, right?

Could their silence be somehow related to the alleged freezing of SMBIT by the SEC?

I expect the coins will be auctioned in largish lots, like the DPR seized ones were, for the same reasons.

Check the thread, I saw ~24'000 BTC there somewhere.  But there were 40'000 at some point it seems:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150803.msg9428397#msg9428397

I would think that it has to be by public auction(s), for legal reasons.  (Any other solution would expose them to accusations of undue privilege and/or harming the customers by not getting the best price.  An auction may get a lousy price, but they could not be blamed for that.  Trust me, I know how civil servants think.  )

If so, they may hand it to the USMS auction service, or hire an auction house. 

Is that where one can contact Katy Perry?

What has Viagra to do with Carl Sagan's bad ripoff of Stanislaw Lem's His Master's Voice?

From what I read, I understand that the FTC got only 1.2 M$ in cash.  They may recover some more from properties that the managers bought (including a 0.5 M$ home and a 0.1 M$ car).  That does not seem enough to cover all refunds due.  In my understanding, the FTC claims that those bitcoins belong to the customers.  But it is tons of legal paperwork, still pouring...

Yeah.

The USMS auction happened on June 27.  In the 4 days prior the price dropped from 600$ to 560$, then recovered to 600$. After the auction it remained at 600$ for another 3 days, then shot up to 650$, perhaps on rumors that Draper had paid over market.  But that 650$ was merely a return to the high of June 2-10.  It may well be that those swings had nothing to do with the auction.

FTC appointed receiver is to convert ~24'000 BTC seized from BFL (and EMC?) to cash "on a systematic and reasoned basis"
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150803.msg9427254#msg9427254