Following up on the attack idea, here's what someone posted on another forum: An insider email was leaked onto r/bitcoin a couple weeks ago. Basically a group of rogue traders on Tor organizes a planned DDOS of MtGox at a specific date and time - thus locking out everyone from creating new trades - while simultaneously creating a sell off over 4 hours. The fact that no new trades can be created combined with the price dropping precipitously causes a panic, which grows. At the height of the panic, they buy back in (because they are the ones controlling the DDOS, so they get to make the profitable trades). Everyone else loses their ass who reads the price manipulation as true market price and panics. More people need to understand this because no one is actually panicking at first; it's price manipulation through the DDOS dropping the price, not actual mass sell off. Still people just blindly look at the price of MtGox and don't consider this as a possibility even though it's happened frequently over the last few months. Information is power.