BITCOIN CRASH as MT. GOX Stops All Withdrawals - Does the ELITE Want BITCOIN Gone?

A temporary halt on withdrawals from the bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox on Friday and subsequent price decline have prompted trading platform SecondMarket to start a pilot program to buy and sell bitcoin, a move it says highlights the need for a major U.S.-based bitcoin exchange.

SecondMarket, which made its name as a platform that allowed investors to trade shares of Facebook Inc. FB before the company went public, has established itself in the bitcoin space through its open-ended bitcoin trust.

There is no major bitcoin exchange based in the U.S., even as U.S. investors are pouring millions into domestic bitcoin start-ups and U.S. companies are beginning to adopt the virtual currency as payment.

Mt. Gox, which is based in Japan, isn't even the largest bitcoin exchange. The largest by 30-day volume is Bitstamp, which based in Slovenia, according to data from bitcoincharts.com. The second-biggest is BTC-e, which appears to be based in Bulgaria. Mt. Gox is third.

"The single most important thing that we can do...is get some serious exchanges established here in New York," Circle's Allaire said at the hearing. Circle is a company that aims to make bitcoin payments easier for merchants.

There are companies working on establishing bitcoin exchanges in New York, but witnesses at the hearing pointed to the regulatory uncertainty and reluctance from banks to work with bitcoin companies as major hurdles.

In recent trade, bitcoin traded at $741.30 on the bitcoin exchange Bitstamp and $763 on Mt. Gox. That's a decline from trading around $900 earlier this week on Mt. Gox and in the early $800s in the same period on BitStamp. Here's a two-month chart of prices on Bitstamp:

Russian authorities have issued warnings against using Bitcoin, saying the virtual currency could be used for money laundering or financing terrorism and that treating it as a parallel currency is illegal.
Reddit, Virgin Galactic, and Overstock.com now accept Bitcoin.

So do dating site OKCupid and travel site CheapAir.com. Game giant Zynga is now in the testing phase. Two big Las Vegas hotels accept Bitcoin. Already, 21,000 merchants are using Coinbase to accept Bitcoin from customers.

(And you can use Bitcoin at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Crate & Barrel, Target, Sears, CVS, Hyatt Hotels, Kohl's, Burger King, Applebees, Victoria's Secret, Land's End, Facebook, Groupon, Banana Republic, the Gap, AMC and Fandango movie theaters, Whole Foods, Wine.com, Wine Enthusiast, Papa John's, Nike, Adidas, Sephora, Sports Authority, Staples, Zales jewelry, Game Stop, FTD flowers, Zappos and hundreds of other stores if you use Bitcoin to buy gift cards at Gyft.) bitcoin

Andy Haldane -- Executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England -- believes that peer-to-peer internet technology will lead to the break up of the big banks.
Visa has attacked Bitcoin as being less trustworthy than its well-established payment system.

JP Morgan Chase has filed a patent for a Bitcoin-like payment system. And Russia's largest bank is working on a Bitcoin alternative as well.
Ben Bernanke and the Department of Justice have both cautiously blessed Bitcoin. While crypto-currencies remain insulated from central bank manipulation, governments have thus far been tolerant, perhaps because their capability to track transactions is more advanced than Bitcoin believers admit.
Indeed, Bitcoin is not really that anonymous, as the NSA can track Bitcoin trades.

Few protests elicit the same collective gasp from the internet as smashing up an iPhone, so the device-mutilating fury of some members of the Bitcoin community has plunged Apple into a new controversy over policies in its App Store. btc china Imagine a world in which you can buy anything in secret. No banks. No fees. No worries inflation will make today's money worth less tomorrow.

The digital currency Bitcoin promises all these things. And while it's far from achieving any of them — its value is unstable and it's rarely used — some have high hopes.