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Comment by sliverstorm | Hacker News Reader

What on earth is all this talk about "attacks" and "rolling back the market"? This is how currency works; we've just been witness to one of the darker parts. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not legitimate.

Even if it's illegal to manipulate the US Dollar, it is most certainly legal to manipulate the BitCoin, whose express purpose was to be wholly unregulated!!!

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There's been a lot of talk about regulation, but I read something earlier today that I found rather surprising:

"Unlike stocks, futures or options, currency trading does not take place on a regulated exchange. It is not controlled by any central governing body, there are no clearing houses to guarantee the trades and there is no arbitration panel to adjudicate disputes. All members trade with each other based on credit agreements. Essentially, business in the largest, most liquid market in the world depends on nothing more than a metaphorical handshake." - 1

So basically, the method of bitcoin exchange isn't all that different from ForEx. What's happened here is that the trading house has taken a fall, but doesn't appear prepared to take it on the chin. I don't know much about Mt. Gox. Any guesses as to whether or not they're insured? If this turns out to be a case of Mt. Gox's systems being hacked, are they liable?

What's most interesting for me is the irony on display. Bitcoin, Mt. Gox, and the whole ecosystem were established on principles like lack of regulation, anonymity, and un-traceability, yet here they are, hoist by their own petard.

[1] http://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/06/SevenFXFAQs.as...

I suppose this makes sense... the US government doesn’t really care if you get fleeced buying or selling British pounds, and the British government doesn’t care if you get fleeced buying or selling US dollars.

I guess the "attack" was done by the guy doing the mass sell off since he had acquired the coins by hacking into Mt Gox and stealing other people's coins. That is stealing, not manipulation. Had that not happened, and if it was just some speculator doing a mass sell off, they should have let him do it and not done the roll back. If you sell at 0.01 per btc, and the market goes back up, you lose money. Simple as that.

It's not illegal to manipulate the US Dollar as long as your name is the Federal Reserve.

BTC is semi-regulated, by a group who work on the mainline client plus the voice of the bitcoin forums.

Mt. Gox, however is fairly self-regulated; everyone who participates in it wants it to be.

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