[GNHLUG] MerriLUG: April 2nd 2013 - Bitcoin

[Peter Petrakis]

On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 11:48 AM, Ben Scott <dragonhawk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 10:42 AM, Peter Petrakis
> <peter.petrakis at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If you can buy puts against this then it's easy money. Why don't they
> > suspend trading during a DoS or an institute an uptick rule?
>
>   I thought one of the big things about Bitcoin is that there is no
> "they", it's all peer-to-peer.  Yes/no?
>

stock exchanges are also peer to peer in a sense and have similar
polices for trading securities. If there isn't stock in one market,
my broker will route the order to another market. So here's an
exchange where you can bid on bitcoins.

http://www.mpex.co/

If I were up to no good I could buy bucket of put contracts
at the current price, issue the DoS order to my *friends*
from an [insert unsavory  country here] and as it plummets
sell my contracts back where demand is higher making an
insane profit; or I just buy during the dip and sell after
the attack.

It's classic market manipulation and it doesn't appear
that I can go to the SEC for relief. If the exchanges
actually talked to each other they could halt trading
during these events which would freeze the price,
preserving the value of your investment.

This currency just swung like the VIX (tracks market
volatility), based on what?


>
> -- Ben
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