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Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

bloomberg.com

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Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#101

Post by gggydf32 »

MagicalTux wrote: post #95
modeless wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who don't know, MagicalTux is Mark Karpeles, owner and CEO of Mt Gox. Assuming this is his real account. And for what it's worth, I agree that this is a bad article based on what I know about the situation. Bloomberg reporting in general is questionable these days if you ask me. I don't trust them since the false Supermicro hack story (never retracted BTW) and I've seen several other bad stories from them s…

Yep this is indeed me. This article would clearly have its place on PRNewsWire rather than Bloomberg.

So you are commenting on the veracity of the article, then?

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#102

Post by zoba »

MagicalTux wrote: post #94
zoba wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark, the security errors in Mt Gox cost me sums of money that would have completely changed the life of myself and my family. Mostly I have moved on from this, but occasionally I multiply my Mt Gox holdings by the current price of Bitcoin and imagine how life could be. I have never heard you express sorrow for the individuals whose lives you so negatively impacted. I have no idea if you have plans to make amends for…

I am sorry for the situation and the way things and have expressed sorrow continuously, starting with the bankruptcy press conference, and on multiple occasions. I have been helping people who contacted me or who posted on reddit, been in touch with MtGoxLegal and other creditor groups, and generally tried to keep everyone aware of their rights and needed procedures to be into the bankruptcy. I also have made sure th…

Thank you for posting this. I was aware of the bankruptcy press conference, though honestly (but perhaps incorrectly) perceived most of it as "My lawyer made me say this". I feel your message here which you posted even after all these years does convey true regret.

I agree with you on the idea of a new exchange. While it is a hopeful idea, ultimately I don't think that it would be very fruitful. In my opinion, it is about as far fetched as the idea of working with the US Government to get the feds seized from BTC-e to repay the creditors (because apparently the BTC-e folks were the ones who executed the Gox attack?). I assume you agree getting coins from the US Gov't is far fetched.

Thank you for highlighting CoinLab's (Peter's) actions. I am so very ready for the bankruptcy to be over, I can only imagine how ready you are to move on from it.

I appreciate the thoughtfulness you've given to your words. Please don't stay silent.

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#103

Post by gggydf32 »

MagicalTux wrote: post #97
threepio wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the false Supermicro hack story (never retracted BTW) So the idea is that Bloomberg, a company owned by a multibillionaire, published a story full of libel, and for some inexplicable reason none of the corporations damaged by that story sued them? Or maybe ... the story is true, and those mentioned found it embarrassing, so they put out denials to the press and social media that will never have to be scrutinized (s…

Or maybe suing for libel brings a lot of attention so unless it's very bad most companies will opt not to sue, especially if the target is a major news organization.

Er, Supermicro servers being surreptitiously implanted and installed in customer networks are existentially-threatening allegations against their business. I struggle to imagine what “very bad” would be in your view if that doesn’t rise to the bar.

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#104

Post by xwdv »

downandout wrote: post #85
zoba wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark, the security errors in Mt Gox cost me sums of money that would have completely changed the life of myself and my family. Mostly I have moved on from this, but occasionally I multiply my Mt Gox holdings by the current price of Bitcoin and imagine how life could be. I have never heard you express sorrow for the individuals whose lives you so negatively impacted. I have no idea if you have plans to make amends for…

I originally started my HN account to ask what I should do when my cofounder screwed me out of $12.8 million I was owed as the result of the sale of our company that he forced me out of and sold without telling me. My username came from that era of my life. I cannot even begin to describe how different my life would be had my cofounder not done this. It is unlikely that I will ever again create something that valuabl…

I really don't get how someone can casually screw someone out of such vast sums of money and not live in fear watching their back the rest of their life. They must really be confident the individual would remain mentally stable. Not everyone will just walk away quietly and meditate, some people will definitely try to find the best way to put a bullet in your head.

If you're going to screw someone, you should at least come up with some cover story that shifts the blame away from you, and even then you better hope the truth isn't discovered.

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#105

Post by axiosgunnar »

zoba wrote: post #76
MagicalTux wrote: post #35

Being directly involved in this I'm not going to comment as of the veracity of the article myself, but rather point to a response of when this was posted on twitter (look at the extra responses for some fact checking): https://twitter.com/wizsecurity/status/1355973512012292096

Mark, the security errors in Mt Gox cost me sums of money that would have completely changed the life of myself and my family. Mostly I have moved on from this, but occasionally I multiply my Mt Gox holdings by the current price of Bitcoin and imagine how life could be. I have never heard you express sorrow for the individuals whose lives you so negatively impacted. I have no idea if you have plans to make amends for…

> occasionally I multiply my Mt Gox holdings by the current price of Bitcoin and imagine how life could be

I often have flashbacks to that one tweet I saw many many years ago saying „Bitcoin reaches USD parity“. I was considering investing a thousand bucks at that time, just for fun.

I would be 37 million dollars rich today!

Who am I kidding.

What would have actually happened is I would have sold everything once my money doubled to 2 USD/BTC, and then panicked seeing it rise and rise, bought in again right before a crash and sold everything with a huge loss.

So realistically, you should take what the Bitcoins you lost were worth at that time, and multiply it 2-3 times if you‘re lucky, and that‘s it.

Most of the stories of people getting rich with bitcoin are:

- people invested in the ecosystem, eg creators of exchanges etc

- true believers (rare)

- celebrities like the Winklevosses who actively invested large amounts of money with some kind of plan

- people who forgot a harddrive from 2010 with 100 bitcoins and found it again in 2018. (or like MtGox, where they were stuck in liquidation for so long that the assets are worth billions now)

If you‘re not in one of those groups, I think you realistically do not need to worry about having lost anything more than a few single digit multiples of your Bitcoins worth in dollars back then.

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#106

Post by axiosgunnar »

downandout wrote: post #85
zoba wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark, the security errors in Mt Gox cost me sums of money that would have completely changed the life of myself and my family. Mostly I have moved on from this, but occasionally I multiply my Mt Gox holdings by the current price of Bitcoin and imagine how life could be. I have never heard you express sorrow for the individuals whose lives you so negatively impacted. I have no idea if you have plans to make amends for…

I originally started my HN account to ask what I should do when my cofounder screwed me out of $12.8 million I was owed as the result of the sale of our company that he forced me out of and sold without telling me. My username came from that era of my life. I cannot even begin to describe how different my life would be had my cofounder not done this. It is unlikely that I will ever again create something that valuabl…

Why do you believe you will never be able to start another project worth millions? If you did it once, you can do it again.

You are even starting out ahead as you can impress investors with your past project!

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#107

Post by rasengan »

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #98
MagicalTux wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry for the situation and the way things and have expressed sorrow continuously, starting with the bankruptcy press conference, and on multiple occasions. I have been helping people who contacted me or who posted on reddit, been in touch with MtGoxLegal and other creditor groups, and generally tried to keep everyone aware of their rights and needed procedures to be into the bankruptcy. I also have made sure th…

As a counterpoint, I would like to thank you Mark for what you built, and the movement you started. You did change my life and the lives of many others, enabling us to build the future. Lessons were learned by many. NYKNYC. We cannot change the past, and we must build for the future. I think when the dust settles, you will be remembered as a pioneer and economy builder.

Agreed. Those who fell at the beginning are those who paved the way. Mark is a hero. Nothing less.

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#108

Post by hansvm »

trixie_ wrote: post #36
woodruffw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crypto has value simply because it is better at storing value than the mediums that came before it. Is this a serious claim? The last one and a half months have seen extraordinary speculation in cryptocurrency markets, even by the standards of cryptocurrencies. Lots of wealth is being produced ; relatively little is being stored.

It's in the news everyday. Huge investment firms diversifying into crypto. So yes, value is being stored. The market cap of cypto has been rising exponentially - exactly because it is a good store of value. Which means easy to store, and highly resistant to manipulation and inflation.

> The market cap of cypto has been rising exponentially

Personal pet peeve -- "a lot" is not synonymous with "exponentially." Crypto's market cap is decidedly sublinear on a logarithmic chart.

> exactly because it is a good store of value

If I pre-mine a trillion units of a cryptocurrency and sell one to my dog for $1 then it has a trillion dollar market cap. Whether or not it's a good store of value is a separate claim which needs independent proof.

> easy to store

So long as you never make any mistakes. Mt. Gox did a decent job at storing crypto for awhile ;)

> highly resistant to manipulation

So long as we pretend that Elon's tweets didn't impact dogecoin by >50% and that more broadly a form of word-of-mouth popularity doesn't affect the general public's chance of investing in crypto.

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#109

Post by rasengan »

MagicalTux wrote: post #94
zoba wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark, the security errors in Mt Gox cost me sums of money that would have completely changed the life of myself and my family. Mostly I have moved on from this, but occasionally I multiply my Mt Gox holdings by the current price of Bitcoin and imagine how life could be. I have never heard you express sorrow for the individuals whose lives you so negatively impacted. I have no idea if you have plans to make amends for…

I am sorry for the situation and the way things and have expressed sorrow continuously, starting with the bankruptcy press conference, and on multiple occasions. I have been helping people who contacted me or who posted on reddit, been in touch with MtGoxLegal and other creditor groups, and generally tried to keep everyone aware of their rights and needed procedures to be into the bankruptcy. I also have made sure th…

CoinLab is a joke. Calling his actions abusive is kind.

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#110

Post by poi412 »

rasengan wrote: post #107
rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterpoint, I would like to thank you Mark for what you built, and the movement you started. You did change my life and the lives of many others, enabling us to build the future. Lessons were learned by many. NYKNYC. We cannot change the past, and we must build for the future. I think when the dust settles, you will be remembered as a pioneer and economy builder.

Agreed. Those who fell at the beginning are those who paved the way. Mark is a hero. Nothing less.

Is this coordinated image rehabilitation or something?

You authoritatively confirmed that the account is who it says it is as your first involvement in this thread. Was that based on firsthand knowledge? I’m really suspicious about your involvement here and I’m starting to suspect someone figured out just how easily HN can be leveraged if the commentary remains civil and lionizes the right people late on a Friday night when everyone is looking the other way.

People who rescue children from fires are heroes. People who make amends for significant errors, after aggressively trying to obfuscate them for many years, have some measure of retroactive integrity. There’s a difference and while he certainly deserves credit, he’s quite obviously manipulating this discussion in real time (I’m not saying it, but I’m saying it, wink wink).

Call me cynical, call me uncivil, whatever, but what you just said is a giant pile of the absolute worst excrement to ever cross this site. I’m not even involved in this drama, I’ve never speculated on Bitcoin, I have no ill feelings for this person, he cost me nothing, but holy Moses is what you’re doing here one of the most transparent efforts I’ve ever seen.

The more this back room stuff goes on in crypto, where we are all subjected to very public he said she said spats and expected to choose who’s our hero in this adventure and navigate who’s more full of shit, the less claim cryptocurrency has to legitimacy. I’m amazed that’s not obvious to you.

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