Re: [tlug] [OT] Mt.Gox Debacle. Please Comment.

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

Edmund Edgar writes:

 > You're right that there's an indivisible unit in Bitcoin - the
 > protocol doesn't do decimals - but you're not right about how big
 > it is. The protocol doesn't know anything about bitcoins, and
 > instead deals in "satoshi", of which there are 100,000,000 (1億) to
 > the Bitcoin.

I'll have to look closely at the protocol to comment.  I still smell
anchovies.

 > (At the levels you talk about I'd have thought the traditional
 > institutions like MUFJ would want a piece of the action.)

Those institutions get the hives looking at national currency
volatility.  Since there's nothing to back Bitcoin except money
laundering and far-right paranoia, it's hard to see a high valuation
as anything but a bubble from the point of view of traditional
financial institutions (Bank of America's "max $15 billion" estimated
valuation notwithstanding -- and 15x10^9 is peanuts to those guys
anyway, unless they can get it all).  The money in credit cards and
withdrawal fees at ATMs is *way* bigger.

If it does take off (the total valuation of Bitcoin reaches $100
billion, I'd guess), yeah, those guys will be all over it.