Imagine what it would be like if there were bank holidays, but they are not predictable in a calendar sense in advance like our holidays... and every bank has their own list of holidays. And also there are only five banks.
I think the price is falling because there's been a speculative bubble rising, and the speculators' confidence is a fickle thing. Maybe up until now, you were a speculator and you didn't think you needed to go anywhere else. Now Mt.Gox has frozen trading and they are also not processing withdrawals. Most people stop trading too.
So, it's a fire sale, because nobody knows if our bubble will blow itself back up again, or how long it's going to take for that to happen. If you were keeping 2/3 of your money at Mt.Gox and now you're afraid that it's utterly gone (at least you know you won't be trading it today), so you've only got 1/3 of what you had, and everyone in town says it's worth 1/7 what it was yesterday.
A few people would surely take the money and get rid of it.
I think the price is falling because there's been a speculative bubble rising, and the speculators' confidence is a fickle thing. Maybe up until now, you were a speculator and you didn't think you needed to go anywhere else. Now Mt.Gox has frozen trading and they are also not processing withdrawals. Most people stop trading too.
So, it's a fire sale, because nobody knows if our bubble will blow itself back up again, or how long it's going to take for that to happen. If you were keeping 2/3 of your money at Mt.Gox and now you're afraid that it's utterly gone (at least you know you won't be trading it today), so you've only got 1/3 of what you had, and everyone in town says it's worth 1/7 what it was yesterday.
A few people would surely take the money and get rid of it.