Quote from: devphp on March 06, 2014, 09:42:21 AM

Quote from: deisik on March 06, 2014, 08:46:02 AM

I can't agree with that. Money as such doesn't make you the owner of anything (save for the money itself). I don't think bitcoin is any different in this aspect. I think you are unintentionally confusing bitcoin as money and bitcoin as a commodity here. If the latter, I don't see how you can't fix its price now for future delivery just like you do with a foreign currency (which can be easily shorted though it obviously doesn't have delivery problem)...

No confusion here. Bitcoin is a commodity at this point, digital commodity. It does act as money too, but not many merchants and limited liquidity, so I wouldn't refer to it as money yet.

You can't manipulate its price a lot, because you can't issue paper derivatives against it. You either own bitcoins and sell them or you don't own them and can't sell them. Other commodities have storage and transporation issues, thus making possible the practise of trading paper contracts only (which exactly is what 95% or more traders do at commodity exchanges), which in turn opens possibilities for naked short sales, which is used for price manipulation.

With bitcoin you can take immediate delivery to your local wallet, you don't need to store bitcoins on an exchange. An exchange never knows how many bitcoins would be requested to be withdrawn at any time, so it can't risk allowing to sell bitcoins naked short if it wants to remain solvent. Any exchange that requires you to wait to withdraw your purchased bitcoins is a huge red flag.

I think you have missed Mpex where you can trade bitcoin derivatives as well as Bitfinex and BTC-E to go short. Not too sure why you claim that the price cannot be manipulated. The order book is very thin and with only a couple of millions you can manipulate quite easily. Just look at the recent jump. This was not natural demand. It was one guy with a couple of millions in hand.