There are two sides to this story. Here is Mt Gox's response: https://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20250.0
I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday
121–130 of 319 posts
Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every rollback has a detrimental effect on confidence in the exchange.
I'd say the confidence is pretty shaken up because the exchange has been hacked. I expect from my bank that they give me back my money if it is being stolen from me, why would I not expect it from MtGox (if it is within their power). Banks routinely roll back fraud transactions and nobody complains - except the fraudsters, of course.
That's different: the bank would take a loss to pay you back, even if it couldn't recover the funds from the thief. MtGox isn't proposing to take any losses, as far as I've heard.
Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday
#123This reminds me of a conversation I was having with a friend a couple of days ago about network affects. Once a system gets too big, the nice people that started it start getting screwed by the people who don't understand (or care about) the founding ideals. The problem with a trading house like Mt. Gox is that some people assume that all of the players are altruistic (these "some people" being "me", somebody with a…
Before seeing this crash for the last couple of days, it felt like the advantage was that bitcoin users were mostly geeks, and mostly trustworthy.
Yeah whatever. 90% of the people using Bitcoin don't believe in the Federal Reserve system or fiat money and just want anonymous online cash transactions. There is nothing wrong with such beliefs or desires, but the idea that such people are on a higher moral plane is the complaint of a naive person at best.
Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday
#124This guy doesn't really have a leg to stand on. Just like when the flash crash happened on the real stock market, transactions are going to be rolled back. One thing that has become abundantly clear from reading all of the comments on the Bitcoin forums is that the investing knowledge of most BTC traders is much less than your average equities, fixed income, or ForEx trader. MtGox is a pretty low budget operation, bu…
I had transactions in the flash crash that weren't rolled back and I lost a big chunk of cash (well, for me).
I just don't see how an exchange that doesn't have builtin failsafes/circuit breakers can just roll back trades. I think that in this case, the exchange should be liable. He was just exploiting the market.
Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have some bytecoins over here. They're worth roughly 8x a bitcoin.
My bytecoins are worth 9 bitcoins each because they are parity-checked.
Whoa there. Your parity-checked bytecoins are only worth 7 bitcoins each (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-bit_clean).
Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday
#126If I were this guy, I'd have my attorney try to get an immediate injunction in place. It seems like mtgox is just making this up as they go.
Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does matter if it's a bitcoin, a car or a quarter. A bitcoin is completely virtual with no intrinsic value. The legal recourse that would occur in this case is undefined .
I think you've confused title with damages. If I own something, I have legal rights enforceable on it, regardless of whether anyone else thinks it's valuable. If I owned the bitcoins -- I suspect common law would have little difficult in identifying these as distinctly ownable -- then I have enforceable rights in them. I can ask the court to order those rights be respected. Property rights in virtual property is a fa…
Ultimately, there's the way things should be and the way things are, and Bitcoin already has a stigma. Sure, it's not illegal right now, but that doesn't mean it's legal either. That's all I'm saying. Imagine the headlines:
"Virtual currency used by drug traffickers stolen from users, courts play world's tiniest violin."
If a drug dealer steals a kilo from another drug dealer he's not going to take it to the courts. Thinking you will be entitled to some form of legal recourse should something similar happen to you when trading bitcoins is, IMO, foolish at this point.
Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
He stole 600+ BTC, though. And now he resents giving back the BitCoins that are supposed to be "rolled back". Not so benevolent in my opinion.
No he didn't. He withdrew them as proof of concept. Right now it's not even clear who he should give them back to. Furthermore, unless he caused the selloff there was nothing wrong with putting in his $0.0101 order. I suspect the bitter people on the bitcoin forum are the ones who had $0.01 orders in and assumed that fractional values would be rounded down the the nearest cent. They were hoping to make some easy mone…
The 643 he has are 'worth' $10K at the $17/btc rate. That would be triple the $3000 he 'had in his account' so either way that would be not a bad return on $3K.
Raises other questions about whether clients can 'conspire' to hold records of sales (vs rolling back the transactions). In real 'cash' situations you have to give back the actual currency, in a bitcoin world its a rollback of the sell record, but now you've created Heisencoins have you not? Sold by some accounts, not sold by others?
Interesting to watch the intersection of the protocol and the reality.
Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't see the problem with a rollback. Suppose I gamble my life savings, buy Kleenex shares. Tomorrow a report comes out showing that using paper tissues causes allergies and prolongs colds. The shares tank ... I'd like a rollback please! Strangely enough the guy that saw the report first and shorted those shares making millions doesn't want a rollback. Of course he wants to keep the money, he traded correctly on…
The difference is that the BTC being sold were stolen. It is a completely different thing from what you describe. If tomorrow it was discovered that the BitCoin protocol has been hacked and BitCoins are worthless, a rollback wouldn't be justified.
>The difference is that the BTC being sold were stolen.
First up, who stole the bitcoins from whom?
Second, why allow trades that you know that you won't honour and will instead want to roll back?
Third, rarely the bank loses, why do they get a do-over just because they lost at playing at forex?
Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday
#130The problems here with Bitcoin come across as the same problems with piracy: Bitcoin are just bits on a computer. Just like piracy, when we copy bits from one place to another, is it really "stealing"? Anyone that says "yes", better double-check their stance on software piracy as well.
I like to imagine your imagination; like what you imagine the dollars in your bank account to be.