I have no idea about what the price may do over the weekend.  Even my "Slumber" predictions, for ~20--24 h ahead, are not expected to hold  if there is too much volume late into the night -- and there seems to be no way of predicting those Albertosaurs.

However, I believe that the Chinese exchanges are the main drivers of the price, simbply because they are 80% of the volume, and appear to have greater liquidity.  However, their traders do not seem to be very much tuned into bitcoin news.  Most of those news are about developments in the West that have no impact in China.  If the Chinese react to some development (like the Bloomberg rumor), it is because some Western exchange reacted strongly to it first (so strongly that arbitrage was overwhelmed), and then the Chinese went into panic buy or panic sell.  That is my impression.

EDIT: typos.

Well said.

Now imagine the same thing happening with biometric data... 

Trade volume today (Fri Mar/07 00:00--23:59 UTC) on the exchanges that I monitor was ~265 kBTC, almost the same as yesterday's (262) and about one half of the previous three days'.

Volume outside China increased 121% (from 24 to 54 kBTC).  The relative volumes of the main exchanges remained about the same: Bitstamp 21.5 kBTC, Bitfinex 17.2, and BTC-e 13.5.  The fourth place, Kraken, has only 1.20 kBTC.

On the other hand, volume in China decreased 11% (from 238 to 211 kBTC).  For the third day in a row, OKCoin had more volume than Huobi (110 vs. 96 kBTC).  BTC-China and Bter still had only 2.4% of the Chinese volume.

China's slice of the total volume decreased again, from 91% to 80%.

Daily volumes of BTC trade to/from USD and other national currencies (in kBTC):


             !    Fri !    Sat !   Sun !    Mon !    Tue !    Wed !    Thu !    Fri !
  EXCHANGE   !  02/28 !  03/01 ! 03/02 !  03/03 !  03/04 !  03/05 !  03/06 !  03/07 ! Currencies considered

  Bitstamp   |  22.63 |  14.30 |  6.44 |  64.91 |  28.03 |  12.72 |  10.40 |  21.45 | USD
  BitFinEx   |  15.29 |   8.62 |  3.13 |  50.92 |  25.03 |   8.38 |   7.06 |  17.23 | USD
  BTC-e      |  12.74 |   9.55 |  4.58 |  41.71 |  28.83 |  11.19 |   5.69 |  13.54 | USD,EUR,RUR
  Kraken     |   1.34 |   0.39 |  0.32 |   2.82 |   1.81 |   0.87 |   0.71 |   1.20 | EUR
  Bitcoin.DE |   0.70 |   0.31 |  0.32 |   1.34 |   1.02 |   0.40 |   0.34 |   0.38 | EUR
  CaVirtEx   |   0.33 |   0.15 |  0.19 |   0.55 |   0.33 |   0.22 |   0.22 |   0.24 | CAD
  CampBX     |   0.07 |   0.08 |  0.07 |   0.28 |   0.14 |   0.04 |   0.03 |   0.07 | USD

  SUBTOTAL   |  53.10 |  33.40 | 15.05 | 162.53 |  85.19 |  33.82 |  24.45 |  54.11 |

  Huobi      | 122.00 | 104.12 | 40.64 | 253.71 | 268.47 | 196.00 |  92.40 |  96.37 | CNY
  OKCoin     | 129.17 |  73.29 | 34.99 | 126.48 | 137.35 | 286.05 | 139.37 | 109.70 | CNY
  BTC-China  |   7.17 |   5.02 |  2.64 |  16.59 |  15.36 |   8.04 |   5.58 |   4.87 | CNY
  Bter       |   0.29 |   0.30 |  0.24 |   0.67 |   0.64 |   0.31 |   0.32 |   0.32 | CNY

  SUBTOTAL   | 258.63 | 182.73 | 78.51 | 397.45 | 421.82 | 490.40 | 237.67 | 211.26 |

  TOTAL      | 311.73 | 216.13 | 93.56 | 559.98 | 507.01 | 524.22 | 262.12 | 265.37 |


All numbers were collected by hand from the site http://bitcoinwisdom.com. Beware of possible errors.

For each exchange, the numbers include only the trade volume to/from the currencies listed in the rightmost column. Trade between BTC and other cryptocoins, such as LiteCoin, is NOT included.

Dates on the header line are UTC. Specifically, "01/15" means "from 01/15 00:00:00 UTC to 01/15 23:59:59 UTC". (Beware that Bitcoinwisdom uses your local time, so the date may appear to be off by 1 day.  For example, if you are 2 hours west of Greenwich, it may show "01/14 22:00" when the UTC time is "01/15 00:00".)

Chinese Cretaceous Dinosaur and Pleistocene Mammal Slumber Method prediction for Saturday Mar/08

Prediction valid for: Saturday 2014-03-08, 19:00--19:59 UTC (not before, not after)
Huobi's predicted price: 3891 CNY.
Bitstamp's predicted price: 636 USD.

Huobi

The red and green strokes are actual Huobi hourly prices.  The current prediction is the rightmost magenta rectangle.  The blue rectangle is the last prediction (see below), and the light blue-gray rectangles are the previous ones.  The orange and grey dots are the Slumber Points, the mean Huobi prices at 19:00 UTC every day.  Each point is a Glyptodon if the hourly volume V_h for 19:00--19:59 UTC is less than 0.005 times the daily volume V_d 00:00--23:59 UTC; and is an Albertosaurus otherwise. The grey lines are trends fitted a posteriori to the Glyptodon Points. The orange line is the trend that was assumed for the prediction.

Today was an Albertosaurus, barely (V_h/V_d = 5.88 0.00588) so, according to the Method, it does not count for trendification.  The Huobi prediction was therefore obtained from the same trend used yesterday, determined by the last three Glyptodons; namely, p(d) = A+B*Q**(d-04), where d is the day of the month, A = 3833.26, B = 156.74, and Q = 0.464.

Bitstamp

The red and green strokes are actual Bitstamp hourly prices.  The dots, dinosaurs, mammals, lines, and rectangles are Huobi's Slumber Points, dinosaurs, mammals, trends, and predictions, scaled by the currency conversion factor R (6.40 for Feb/07--09, 6.12 for all other times).

Checking the previous prediction

Since today was an Albertosaurus, the prediction for today was officially voided.  But, for the curious:

Prediction was posted on: Thursday 2014-03-06, 23:27 UTC
Prediction was valid for: Thursday Friday 2014-03-07, 19:00--19:59 UTC

Huobi's predicted price: 3899 CNY
Huobi's actual price (L+H)/2: 3802 CNY
Error: 97 CNY (~16 USD)

Bitstamp's predicted price: 637 USD
Bitstamp's actual price (L+H)/2: 623 USD
Error: 14 USD

NOTE: Thanks for the user who proposed a pterosaur for extreme bullish predictions.  Now looking for an ichtyosaur to match.

Newsweek reporter interview on Bloomberg TV:
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/can-the-real-dorian-nakamoto-please-stand-up-vSiahPV4ReyViJX2_IJhZw.html

I can't find words to describe it.  I hope Dorian Nakamoto sues her for everything she has.

Actually I don't believe the article myself, it reads as if the reporter twisted the words and facts to fit her theory.

Someone posted earlier a paragraph that Newsweek deleted from that article, which explained how the reporter had found Dorian by combing through all the "Satoshi Nakamoto"s living in the US. Now, if you collect a hundred random people from some database, there is a good chance that you will find one who has a computer or electronics background (even if it is not cryptography).  That person quite likely will have worked for some technology company (where else?) that did classified wor for the government (is there any company in the US that didn't?)  Heck, even *I* worked for two such companies (Xerox and Digital Equipment).

Then you only have to pick a phrase or two from relatives and acquaintances that suggests he is the guy, and omit the cartloads of evidence that suggest that he isn't...

That is not the point, don't you see? 

The price took a plunge when Mark Karpeles said "bitcoin has a bug".

Now Satosh Nakamoto says that he did not invent bitcoin. Surely "bitcoin does not exist" is much worse than "bitcoin has a bug".

 

By the way, if you find it hard to believe that a man in the situation of Dorian Nakamoto could invent bitcoin and not cash out a single coin: check Grigori Perelman, who settled the Poincaré Conjecture and then turned down the Fields Medal and a 1,000,000 US$ prize:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman
http://brettforrest.com/articles/shattered-genius/

Me too, once I got over the new face shock. 

I meant a VAT on the barter itself.  Say, if one trades 100,000 EUR worth of salted pork bellies for a 100,000 EUR car, is he supposed to pay VAT or other taxes on the 100,000 EUR?

I was quite disappointed by the /Lord of the Rings/ movie too, the characters did not look at all like I had imagined them. 

Is VAT due (in principle, if not in practice) on barter transactions?

I suppose that any government that collects VAT (or sales tax) will want to collect it when someone buys things with bitcoin -- even if BTC-EUR or BTC-GBP transactions are exempted.

Or (as other shave pointed out?) after three years, Dorian Nakamoto again logs in as Satoshi to get the reporters off his back...

I wonder if someone smart enough to invent bitcoin would be smart enough to fool a reporter?  Like, call it "that bitcom thing" a couple of times, between a sushi and a sip of sake?... 

The Newsweek reporter's tweeter still has no reaction to the AP interview. (Last tweet is from 9h ago).

You caught me again.  Can't trust those academics...

I looked hard but in vain for a decent, copyright-free picture of an ankylosaur in the right pose.  Ran through the entire  family tree.  Desperate, I karpeled it, hoping no one would notice the forgery...

Total trade volume today (Thu Mar/06 00:00--23:59 UTC), in the exchanges that I monitor, was only ~262 kBTC.  That is almost exactly half of yesterday's, but close to that of last Thursday Feb/27.

Volume in the Chinese exchanges decreased  52% (from 490 to 238 kBTC). The loss was evenly distributed among Huobi and OKCoin, so that OKCoin retained the advantage that it suddenly won yesterday -- namely 59% of the Chinese volume, against Huobi's 39%.  BTC-China had only 2.3% of that volume (5.6 kBTC).

Volume outside China decreased only 28% (from 34 to 24 kBTC).  Bitstamp recovered the lead with 10.4 kBTC, followed by Bitfinex with 7.1 and BTC-e with 5.7. 

China´s slice of the total trade volume decreased slightly, from yesterday's 94% to 91%.

Daily volumes of BTC trade to/from USD and other national currencies (in kBTC):


             !    Thu !    Fri !    Sat !   Sun !    Mon !    Tue !    Wed !    Thu !
  EXCHANGE   !  02/27 !  02/28 !  03/01 ! 03/02 !  03/03 !  03/04 !  03/05 !  03/06 ! Currencies considered

  Bitstamp   |  17.05 |  22.63 |  14.30 |  6.44 |  64.91 |  28.03 |  12.72 |  10.40 | USD
  BTC-e      |  14.60 |  12.74 |   9.55 |  4.58 |  41.71 |  28.83 |  11.19 |   5.69 | USD,EUR,RUR
  BitFinEx   |  12.04 |  15.29 |   8.62 |  3.13 |  50.92 |  25.03 |   8.38 |   7.06 | USD
  Kraken     |   0.89 |   1.34 |   0.39 |  0.32 |   2.82 |   1.81 |   0.87 |   0.71 | EUR
  Bitcoin.DE |   0.50 |   0.70 |   0.31 |  0.32 |   1.34 |   1.02 |   0.40 |   0.34 | EUR
  CaVirtEx   |   0.31 |   0.33 |   0.15 |  0.19 |   0.55 |   0.33 |   0.22 |   0.22 | CAD
  CampBX     |   0.05 |   0.07 |   0.08 |  0.07 |   0.28 |   0.14 |   0.04 |   0.03 | USD

  SUBTOTAL   |  45.44 |  53.10 |  33.40 | 15.05 | 162.53 |  85.19 |  33.82 |  24.45 |

  Huobi      | 123.38 | 122.00 | 104.12 | 40.64 | 253.71 | 268.47 | 196.00 |  92.40 | CNY
  OKCoin     |  83.60 | 129.17 |  73.29 | 34.99 | 126.48 | 137.35 | 286.05 | 139.37 | CNY
  BTC-China  |   6.71 |   7.17 |   5.02 |  2.64 |  16.59 |  15.36 |   8.04 |   5.58 | CNY
  Bter       |   0.31 |   0.29 |   0.30 |  0.24 |   0.67 |   0.64 |   0.31 |   0.32 | CNY

  SUBTOTAL   | 214.00 | 258.63 | 182.73 | 78.51 | 397.45 | 421.82 | 490.40 | 237.67 |

  TOTAL      | 259.44 | 311.73 | 216.13 | 93.56 | 559.98 | 507.01 | 524.22 | 262.12 |


All numbers were collected by hand from the site http://bitcoinwisdom.com. Beware of possible errors.

For each exchange, the numbers include only the trade volume to/from the currencies listed in the rightmost column. Trade between BTC and other cryptocoins, such as LiteCoin, is NOT included.

Dates on the header line are UTC. Specifically, "01/15" means "from 01/15 00:00:00 UTC to 01/15 23:59:59 UTC". (Beware that Bitcoinwisdom uses your local time, so the date may appear to be off by 1 day.  For example, if you are 2 hours west of Greenwich, it may show "01/14 22:00" when the UTC time is "01/15 00:00".)

Unfortunately, no exchange can guarantee that.

The owner of an exchange who finds himself in an insolvent situation simply cannot keep operating the business in an ethical way.   To keep it open, he will have to  stall and deceive his clients and other creditors any way he can, no matter what he promised.  MtGOX showed that clients are much easier to "manage" in this sense than a bank.

The only ethical alternative, in that situation, is to close the exchange and file for bankruptcy.  But then the owner loses control of who gets paid first; indeed, the main goal of the bankruptcy process is to ensure that all creditors are treated fairly.  (Some creditors may have priority by law.  If I understood correctly, in Japan employee salaries and benefits are paid first.  I don't recall any such fine distinctions as client vs bank.)

+∞