I wonder when this story will be picked up more in the English press than it has so far (no Techcrunch yet - which will pull in the mainstream media). I guess if/when BTC releases something official on their website.

In the meantime...
http://technode.com/2013/12/17/alipay-and-tenpay-terminate-payment-and-clearing-services-for-bitcoin

The divergence between Bitstamp and BTC-China is now up to around $70 and has generally been rising over the past 12 hours. Wonder if this means the buyers there (with dollars?) are drying up

NOT my most stunning Nostradamus-like prediction, but this second wave downwards was on the cards.

Bearing in mind this all happened overnight for the USA, it's the larger media outlets with night-time staff who are leading the story. How US east coast investors will react at GMT, as they fire up their computers for the first time will remain to be seen. I can't see how there won't be further sales at that time, with west coast building on the volume a couple of hours later (they get up early those Californians).

Dead.... cat.... bounce

http://regmedia.co.uk/2012/10/18/blofeld.jpg

Never trust a man with a cat

$2 million in profit in the current fiscal year? And all the hassle, risk and aggravation? Remind me never to go into the Bitcoin business.

I just would like to say...

finally

Bring it on

Some back of the cigarette pack calculations, assuming all Bitcoins have been mined (21 million by 2140)...

If Bitcoin were to reach parity with the size of Denmark's money supply (M2 figure - $177 Billion)

1 BTC = $8,445

If Bitcoin were to reach parity with the size of gold (Above ground figure - $6.7 trillion)

1 BTC = $319,000

If Bitcoin were to reach parity with the size of the dollar (M2 figure - $11.5 trillion)

1 BTC = $546,000

If Bitcoin were to replace all the money in the world (M2 figure - >$68 trillion)

1 BTC = $3.3 million

So if you believe that Bitcoin will become either a widely used currency or commodity, take your pick...

Sources:

M2 Figures - http://www.tradingeconomics.com/country-list/money-supply-m2
Above Ground Gold figure - http://onlygold.com/Info/All-The-Gold-In-The-World.asp
Global money supply (M2) - http://simonthorpesideas.blogspot.com/2013/04/total-global-debt-and-money-supply.html
Currency Conversion - http://xe.com

This is a sad day. The drop below $200 was the cue for me personally to cut my losses and offload 60% of my holdings. I dumped everything in the hot wallet, on the brief rebound above $200, and in the time it took me to transfer the balance out of cold storage, including a test transaction, it cost me $3-4k in that time alone (before i could dump the balance around $180). Therein lies part of the problem with Bitcoin - a one hour delay just to move from cold wallet to hot.

A sad day. But I remain hopeful for the long term. I plan to buy back in, hopefully at a lower price.