The chaos, I believe, is due to bad information by the media. MtGox, at the heart of the Bitcoin community has been considered at risk since the beginning of 2013.
It is not just an Italian problem, but diffused at an international level. “MtGox is the king of Bitcoin”, “The Bitcoin Bank”, “The Bitcoin Center”. Titles and contents like these have appeared in some of the most important news reports worldwide, where news is often copied from other sources without any further investigation.
The same goes for the discussion of mining. This superficial way of treating an argument of such importance has, I believe, caused many new arrivals to throw themselves into a sector without weighing the real risks but just the presumed opportunities. As for trading, for example, no one asks whether there are alternative and safer exchanges. Regarding, mining, instead, it should be apparent that the argument requires precise competencies and its development must be followed, hour by hour. The panic of recent days is a result of misinformation. Many users still use MtGox and the volume present was capable of influencing the rest of the market. It is also important to remember that it was the first exchange, with everything this includes in terms of popularity. The origin of the problems of MtGox is a bug. Or, better, something that still needs to be adjusted. This bug has been made note of in documentation since 2011.
A large part of the community is therefore convinced that this is an excuse for hiding their, at this point, famous inadequacies, or an even graver situation. Backing this hypothesis is the fact that no other exchange has been affected by this problem. I think, however, that the system has not undergone any real damage. There were no slow downs, blocks, or data loss.
This aspect is not considered by the principle means of communication that continue to treat the Bitcoin protocol like a company, rather than an emerging technology to be studied and developed.
Within the heart of the community, the closure of MtGox was hoped for for a long time. It would have created space for new actors on the market or given an opportunity for those already present to manage their user services in a safer and more professional way. A similar situation occurred with the closure of the Silk Road site. Up to that point, the media depicted Bitcoin as a money used only for drug deals and illegal markets on the above-mentioned website. And not by chance Silk Road found itself at the top of its notoriety. The day it closed the price of Bitcoin did go down but only for a few hours, then it went back up. After the initial panic, everyone understood that there would be no exclusive link with illegal trafficking. The same goes for MtGox, which, as I said, maintained its position for notoriety and not for merit or worth.
The exchange market is much larger and subdivided. The idea of the closure of the “most famous” exchange is sure to cause preoccupation among those who don’t know the sector very well.
But we are speaking, more precisely, about services that are trying to connect two worlds and have come up against traditional bureaucracy. Yes, Bitcoin is a means of payment, but it can also become a monetary system in and of itself. Imagining a future in which the diffusion of this technology is capillary in a specific place, like an island for example, it is licit to ask what purpose an exchange has for putting it in contact with a bank system that is at this point useless in its traditional form and radically renovated.
In the case, however, there should be an exchange of two different cryptocurrencies (also called mathematical currencies) it would be a dialogue between two evolved environs that are technologically equal. There are already numerous examples of exchanges where this occurs, where there is no canonical money (euro, dollars, etc.).
This said Bitcoin is still the Far West at the moment. It is a new technology that opens unexplored horizons. It offers great opportunities, but also hides numerous risks. If you are simple users you must evaluate the best possible offers that the market can offer. If you want to do business it takes a true mastering of the environs.
The material to study exists and is almost entirely free. Take small steps. We are just at the beginning, just like at the birth of Internet. If you don’t feel ready to enter such an environment, but the sector makes you curious then the best thing to do is wait. In time, the market will offer safer tools that are also easier to use. Or simply invest a small amount of your time (that’s all studying costs) or your funds. Even only 10 euros are enough to try first hand how this new technology works.
