mempool

Murch

00:07

lol, sorry, proofreading my gf's seminar paper

did they issue a statement already?

Murch

00:21

@Marek It's 9:20 am in Japan, they still have more than 14 hours left to fulfill their promise: "Our team will resolve this problem as soon as possible and will provide an update on Monday, February 10, 2014 (JST)."

David Perry

05:31

@Marek okay, someone call Zhou Tonged because that spoof needs to actually happen.

Jacob Torba

06:10

MtGox has the best twitter feed

its automated response bot that doesn't know theres a 144 character limit

pic.twitter.com/YReyqjF5HV

David Perry

07:55

facepalm

Jacob Torba

Concerning memes, I think this should be the true favorite Bitcoin meme

Marek

should add something like: BTC windrawals halt on Gox bitcoin user AFFECTED!

David Perry

10:57

omg the moderator queue is finally empty

@timpost thank you so much for your help while I was out sick (and then again while I caught up on my day job from being out sick)

@shog9 appears to have also come in to clean up shop, too. Thanks guys for everything, you rock.

Marek

11:15

@Murch long bug en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_Malleability goes mainstream! :D

Tim Post

@DavidPerry No worries. You feeling better?

Marek

12:46

i.imgur.com/pOMkYPg.jpg ;) @Murch

Murch

14:43

@Marek Only two more hours today.

fredsbend

15:44

So the price for bitcoin is below $700 for the second time. Anyone else buying right now?

Marek

yup

Murch

I was considering it, haven't decided yet.

fredsbend

I think I'm going to as well.

I've played stocks a few times and have done okay.

Murch

Kinda depends on how Mt. Gox turns out, it might take another dip down, might go back up.

Marek

stocks are kind of different to btc.

fredsbend

15:46

I think there is a good possibility that it will stay in the 700 to 800 range for a while.

Murch

I am lousy at reading the market, so I just try to replace what I spent, when the price is a bit lower than when I spent it, and spend it when the price is higher than when I bought it. ;)

fredsbend

@Murch What exactly is going on. I use coinbase.

Marek

for long term investment no doubt that buying 500-700 is great ;)

Murch

@fredsbend Mt.Gox closed down Bitcoin withdrawals additionally to the USD withdrawals being really slow before already.

They promised to issue a statement today, but haven't yet, afaik.

fredsbend

@Marek Market is the same. It's currently driven by emotion. That's why it's so volatile. Fear drives it down and greed drives it up.

You win by trying to notice that but don't get caught up in it.

Murch

15:48

Additionally, Russia banned Bitcoin and Shrem was arrested on charges of money laundering, so news have been a bit bad.

fredsbend

@Murch Banned! Illegal to trade, just like China?

@Murch I guess we'll see.

Marek

No, they havent banned it. @Murch

Murch

@Marek Alright, perhaps you can clarify what they did then?

Marek

Nobody will be punished using bitcoins in russa, I can a bit speak russian so I read few articles

fredsbend

As far as I can tell, the only thing to kill bitcoin now is govt. action. Russia banning would be quite bad.

Murch

15:53

Just had another look at the Kimoto Gravity Well code, a few comments what the values are supposed to be would help a bit. If I understand correctly, PastBlocksMass counts a number of Blocks up to a maximum of previously found blocks.

fredsbend

16:07

@Marek So what is Russia's disposition on bitcoin, then?

Marek

Money transmitting companies cannot exchange them.

Nothing interesting, just like china

fredsbend

@Marek Can a Russian use a non-russian exchange and freely trade in the russian market?

Marek

they can continue to use btc-e, Russians are on a good way now.

fredsbend

@Marek IIRC, China made it illegal to buy bitcoin with chinese dollars (yuan I think it's called).

@Marek I don't see the problem then.

Marek

They havent made it illegal..

As I said for money transmitting companies

Every state made a statement that they think that it is ponzi scheme and its extremel unsafe to merchant with.

But nobody said BITCOIN IS ILLEGAL in our country and we will arrest everyone who uses it.

fredsbend

16:16

@Marek You live is Russia?

Marek

I live in Czech Republic

fredsbend

@Marek A lot of people who don't understand it keep saying that.

Just the history of how it started should tell you it is something else.

Murch

Alright, so money transmitting businesses in that case would be banks etc.?

Marek

Maybe exchanges too

(bitcoin)

Murch

I was probably a bit quick to regurgitate the news headlines on Russia then. ;)

Marek

16:24

but btc-e is registered outside of russia, isnt it?

Murch

okay

no idea, actually

fredsbend

Down to like 680 now. I think I might put the order in now.

maybe I should wait for gox to make that statement. If it's bad news we should expect a drop.

Murch

@Marek I just read the statement, which apparently has been issued at least 3h ago.

I don't get why they would shut down withdrawals due to that.

Essentially, they would just have to follow-up on withdrawals which are claimed to have not been sent, and check if they have been.

Marek

With their current exchange system they cannot handle the en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_Malleability

they blamed Gox because of their lack of experience..

but this bug is known since 2010/11

fredsbend

16:40

@Marek That's what I'm learning. Not a new thing. Gox is just trying to fix it now for some reason.

Gox might not be the best techs for the job though.

Price on coinbase is almost $80 higher than other charts.

Murch

This question is just really bad. But, I don't really know what to do about it. bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/21941/…

fredsbend

16:55

@fredsbend Actually, just the gox charts.

Where will GOX post the answer to this withdrawal thing?

I think its wise to wait for their response before I buy more.

Murch

17:09

@fredsbend mtgox.com/press_release_20140210.html

fredsbend

@Murch Thanks. That's the original release. Is that where they will post the update?

Murch

@fredsbend that is from today

Original shutdown notice was this: mtgox.com/press_release_20140207.html from Friday

fredsbend

17:34

@Murch My bad. Okay. I don't see this as that big of a problem. You?

Jacob Torba

18:59

It seems like an oversight in bitcoin

Kinda scary to think about it

Murch

@fredsbend I had posted above " I just read the statement, which apparently has been issued at least 3h ago.
I don't get why they would shut down withdrawals due to that.
Essentially, they would just have to follow-up on withdrawals which are claimed to have not been sent, and check if they have been."

I mean, sure it should be fixed

but if I understand correctly, this just makes it slightly harder to check whether they actually sent the payment or not.

The recipients address and the senders remain the same

so does the amount

just the transaction number is different

so, when they receive a claim that it didn't work, they can just check if they sent it or not (again they know the involved addresses and the amount)

Jacob Torba

Transactions can fail time to time

they are having trouble determining if it actually failed or purposely failed.

So they see that no funds have left their wallet and the user claiming they havn't received a transaction.

If MtGox determines the transaction failure is true and they send a second transaction, attacker gets 2x withdraw.

If MtGox determines the transaction failure is purposely there, the user loses the transaction and gets nothing when his account balance is decremented.

David Perry

19:15

@TimPost Soooo much better. I still don't have much of a voice but that only stops me from doing podcasts, videos, etc. I'm back at work and I'm back in the queue, which is what matters.

Jacob Torba

@Murch the chat room is gaining people

2

David Perry

good, SE chat is way better than any other chat engine I've used

add file transfers and get the community to migrate and I'm not sure I'd ever go back to IRC

Murch

20:32

@JacobTorba I understand that. But they do know their own address and the recipient address, so they should be easily able to check whether the payment was sent or not. That should satisfy either case.

@JacobTorba "@Murch the chat room is gaining people" Yay!

David Perry

21:19

@JacobTorba it's really only an oversight if you treat the tx hash your client gives you like it's the rote word of God, which no one should be doing anyway

follow the Bitcoin mantra: If it's not confirmed it hasn't actually happened yet.

if Gox had done that they'd be storing more useful data that would actually help them resolve these cases based on what ended up in the chain, not what they intended to end up in the chain.

fredsbend

21:34

Why is the price for bitcoin on mtgox at about $590 USD while other sites like coinbase and btc-e are at the $670 range?

I realize gox had the recent issues, but that is a steal right now, if I'm looking at is correctly.

Murch

I would assume, because people are afraid that Mt.Gox has more severe problems than what they are telling us

because really, what they are giving as a reason to shut down everything imho is a thing they should be able to fix in three days on their side

fredsbend

@Murch So you trade on gox or elsewhere? I'm thinking about getting an accout really quick to scoop up the deals.

Murch

21:52

@fredsbend I used Bitstamp before

David Perry

@fredsbend that's why the price is so low, most people aren't willing to "scoop up the deals" because they're worried Gox is insolvent and won't be able to pay them their profits in ANY currency

i.e. I buy $1000 worth of "good deal" coins then it turns into $2000 - YAY! - then I try to cash out and... can't...

so I use my $2000 to buy way fewer coins than I could on another exchange and try to cash THOSE out and... can't...

same concept as a bank run, really. when everyone wants out all at once bad things tend to happen.

fredsbend

22:08

@DavidPerry I thought the problem was that there are no USD withdrawals allowed. You can still withdraw bitcoin, right, into your local wallet?

David Perry

@fredsbend that was the problem, now you can't do either

they got scammed, read upward a bit about the transaction malleability attack

so they've shut down bitcoin withdrawals until they can't be scammed that way any more

here's some shameless self-promotion that might help: codinginmysleep.com/on-mtgox-and-transaction-malleability

;)

fredsbend

@DavidPerry Oh. Yeah, I wouldn't buy them either right now. But I am going to open an account and wait until they are back up. Might sneak a good deal then.

Do you think the gox problem is affecting the whole market? I can't help but notice that bitcoin is down 30% in a week.

David Perry

@fredsbend there are two problems: arbitrage and psychology

if an exchange is still liquid enough to move funds in and out people will arb between that exchange and any other with a different price for profit

which has the effect of raising one price and lowering another until they're close enough together that arb is no longer profitable

the other problem is that when people see a big crash on one exchange they might panic-sell on another

fredsbend

It seems like gox is using the superior weight to handle this old known vulnerability now.

@DavidPerry Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

David Perry

@fredsbend it feels more like they're trying to shift blame away from themselves after being bit by a 3-year-old known vulnerability that only happened because they trusted unconfirmed tx data, which is the oldest dumbest fail in the book.

but that's just my opinion

fredsbend

22:16

That's what I'm gathering from comment threads and the like. This is an old issue with a current workaround which gox was not using. Sounds like their fault to me.

David Perry

if I'm aware of the vulnerability, Gox's security people had really better be.

fredsbend

Meanwhile, all the naysayers are giving bitcoin obituaries.

David Perry

meh, the protocol itself is fine

even if gox crashes and burns it's a temporary price problem at worst

they need to go anyway, or at least change their name

I'm tired of hearing detractors saying "Magic the Gathering Online Exchange" in that snotty dismissive voice

give 'em less ammo

fredsbend

It is a dumb name. Does it mean anything?

David Perry

it used to be a Magic: The Gathering card exchange

fredsbend

22:19

You mean the domain belonged to them, or the guys running it used to be also?

David Perry

when it started, the people who were running it then also ran the Magic site

pretty sure it's been bought, sold, divided, restructured to oblivion since then

fredsbend

Hard to believe magic nerds are running the whole thing. Maybe a few of the same people still.

David Perry

my wife plays a white/green deck that will utterly devastate you if you lose

it's not any harder to beat than any other decently balanced deck, but it's built so when she wins it's like 78 to 0

never a close game

fredsbend

22:38

@DavidPerry I voted "Both? Neither? Who cares, just fix it already." Nice article. Explains it well. Cool tipping idea. I want to do something like that, but I guess I need a product first. lol.

David Perry

haha, yeah I noticed a pretty good increase in tips when I did the per-content address thing

uses blockchain.info's forwarding addresses, one of the more under-rated services they offer

blockchain.info/api/api_receive

fredsbend

I think it is not really a bug as much as there being a right way and a wrong way to do the same thing.

@DavidPerry What's the average amount?

David Perry

blockchain.info/address/13rA8U1wRrk3mqw8gR45m94HbASTkTrrT2

I figure anyone who bothers to cross-reference two of the generated addresses can figure out which address blockchain.info is shuffling the donations off to, so I'm not revealing much by just telling people what the address is

it's also not my only source of funding so I'm not telling you much about CIMS' books either :)

fredsbend

Well, by the list there it is about 3mBTC per tip.

More like 4 actually.

David Perry

also remember some of this goes back to pre-$1000 prices

so early tips weren't technically worth as much at the time of the tip

tip count is what I go by to determine which pieces my readership liked best

seems fairer that way

fredsbend

22:45

Yes, I was just thinking that. I see two numbers. 1.6BTC and .9BTC as "Final balance." What's the difference between those two numbers?

It implies to me that there were fees amounting to .7 BTC

David Perry

nope, the .91 is what's in there now, the 1.6 is everything that address has ever received

meaning I've spent ~0.7

fredsbend

Oh. That's makes a little more sense. You fees were probably much much smaller, right?

David Perry

yeah, blockchain.info tries to relay without fees whenever possible

fredsbend

that's cool. Not always possible though, huh?

David Perry

well, it's probably more accurate to just say they don't pay fees

their transactions, by nature, are always small and simple: one input, one output

even fee-less txns will get mined eventually, especially early on like we are when there's no real competition to get into blocks

fredsbend

22:53

So I noticed that when placing an order on coinbase the last four decimals do not affect what you pay. 1 btc and 1.00009999 are the same price. Might as well get the extra kick. Trade enough it will add up.

David Perry

facepalm

why does no one ever do that damn math right

So who's going to the conference in Amsterdam?

I'm planning like crazy trying to work it into my budget

fredsbend

That's a bit far from home for me.

David Perry

I live in Las Vegas, it's pretty far for me too

hence all the hard work and budgeting lol

fredsbend

lol

What is the conference about? You have a link?

David Perry

bitcoin2014.com

not a lot of info there just yet, but I did go to the last foundation con in San Jose and it was AMAZING

fredsbend

23:05

Yeah, no schedule yet. Kind of a little late to be working on that kind of thing still.

I do conferencing for my day job and the best organized conferences have all their ducks in a row by five months. Not saying it's going to be bad, but if the site still looks like that at the end of feb there is a problem.

David Perry

yeah, agreed

I think they've got more than the site is showing though

they ran into some kind of problem with their registration process, which I think every last one of their web devs are currently working on

Murch

23:44

mh, Amsterdam you say? That's not too far :)

Like 550 km

:)

I'll wait for more information though.

David Perry

yeah, I'm not exactly booking airline tickets either

just making sure I have the money if/when that time comes :)

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