I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#161

Post by davemabe » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 1:31 AM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #124

illumin8 wrote: post #113

This 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.

There are trades that get "busted" (i.e. rolled back) every day in the US stock markets. I've had it happen several times. This is part of normal market activity. In my experience it has seemed pretty subjective - some trades that I thought for sure would have been busted weren't and others were.

There's some speculation that when some more powerful market participants (read: Goldman Sachs) are on the losing end of a questionable trade they complain to the exchange and get the trade busted far more frequently than when it happens to less powerful participants.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#162

Post by btilly » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 1:35 AM UTC

Astrohacker wrote: post #121

There are two sides to this story. Here is Mt Gox's response: https://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20250.0

So the person who was lucky enough to actually place that order first was a person who had the luck to have just logged in and be actively browsing the site?

It doesn't surprise me that someone who is on the site would notice an ongoing crash faster than people who were doing something else. It further doesn't surprise me that someone who is already involved with the site would find it easier to get through an overloaded system than others - for one thing they don't need to go through the login process.

I'm not saying that Kevin wasn't associated with the break-in. I'm just saying that the evidence provided is not very good evidence of anything other than that Kevin was at the right place at the right time. Given that the site is actively used, there will always be people in that boat, and they will have an advantage over people who aren't.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#163

Post by danboarder » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 1:38 AM UTC

haberman wrote: post #131

The community that for months has been preaching the virtues of the currency nobody can control is suddenly arguing that a middleman should roll back a bunch of free-market transactions. I decided a while ago that arguing against the "bitcoin has no problems" crowd was futile: people are too enamored with the idea to see problems like this until they happen.

It's not a BitCoin problem, this entire episode revolves around one exchange (MtGox) and its security problems.

Mt Gox Exchange =/= BTC Currency Nasdaq Exchange =/= USD Currency

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#164

Post by colonelxc » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 1:41 AM UTC

keeperofdakeys wrote: post #132

mahyarm wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how Mt.Gox arranges it's accounts, but it's possible it came from the mt.gox BTC pool?

Unless it was the BTC mtgox directly own, that would mean that the BTC you upload aren't the ones that are transferred when you trade (remember BTC are unique). Although I haven't used MtGox, I was pretty sure that it is the case that BTC you upload are the ones that are transferred.

When you transfer money to MtGox, you're essentially giving it to them. They give you a unique address to send to (so they know who sent the money to them), but after that transaction they have your money. Then, they just update the DB reflecting you have X amount of BTC in your account. As you trade with other people on the market, your respective accounts are updated in the DB. When you want to withdraw, you tell MtGox where to send the money. They check the DB and deduct that amount, and send that money from their big stash of everyone's money.

That is why trades can be instantaneous, and don't require confirmation the network (except when you are sending to or withdrawing from MtGox itself).

In this case, if you could hack the DB and convince MtGox that you had more BTC in your account than you really did, you could still withdraw BTC, but there would no longer be enough BTC for everyone to withdraw.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#165

Post by bonch » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 1:50 AM UTC

What's with all the sudden HN coverage of these silly internet fun bucks?

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#166

Post by Stormbringer » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 1:52 AM UTC

sunchild wrote: post #156

robryan wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exchange does seem to go against the primary purpose of the currency.

I agree, but without a credible exchange of any kind, you're left with party-to-party bartering, and no real means for pegging prices. Just like every other currency/commodity.

If it is laggy, has security problems and the people running it are spreading deliberate falsehoods in order to cover their asses...

... it ain't credible.

On the other hand, it sounds like they would have a great career path at the federal reserve...

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#167

Post by ianb » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 2:02 AM UTC

nomurrcy wrote: post #85

sunchild wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? There is a perfectly legitimate argument for letting him keep the funds. They were put up for sale, and he bought them. It was MtGox's systems that executed the trade. If the sell order was invalid, it was MtGox's fault, or the seller account holder's, not the buyer's.

I'm not really sure I agree with this. The right to sell something is predicated on owning the item in question. A buyer of stolen goods is unable to take legal ownership, it doesn't matter if he doesn't know the item is stolen. (i.e. I steal a car, and sell it to you, you don't own the car even though you gave me money and you didn't know the car was stolen) It does matter that the coins were not put up for sale by…

I feel like the concept of "own" is specific to the item. Land ownership is very different than owning money, for example. BitCoin ownership is fairly clear, it's part of the algorithm, and I feel like that should be respected. If you don't respect the rules of the commodity, then don't participate; to change the rules takes away the uniqueness of the commodity.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#168

Post by stanleydrew » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 2:05 AM UTC

Stormbringer wrote: post #166

sunchild wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but without a credible exchange of any kind, you're left with party-to-party bartering, and no real means for pegging prices. Just like every other currency/commodity.

If it is laggy, has security problems and the people running it are spreading deliberate falsehoods in order to cover their asses... ... it ain't credible. On the other hand, it sounds like they would have a great career path at the federal reserve...

"On the other hand, it sounds like they would have a great career path at the federal reserve..."

I don't mean to be too harsh, but I can't see any value in this part of your comment. It will only possibly lead to derailment of this discussion.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#169

Post by noduerme » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 2:05 AM UTC

I don't think o' Kev needs to worry about Mt. Gox thinking he hacked their site. They know who executed the sale; it was them. I don't know why nobody mentions this, but it seems rather obvious that Mt. Gox just dumped all their own bitcoins and bought them back supercheap, apart from a relatively minor 500k worth that they can now "roll back" from his account.

I had a thread last week on HN where I was downranked severely for asking what mt. gox was, i.e. if it was a mountain, in what was a sort of snarky, derogatory tone (I'll admit it). I would like that thread upranked now thx.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#170

Post by rick888 » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 2:13 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #89

rick888 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoins are just bits on a computer and aren't physically taken away like a car or a quarter...so I don't think you can call it "stealing"

Property rights are establishable in a lot of things that are abstract with numerous physical representations. You can own commercial licences, shares, bonds, debts, legal rights to this and that and so on and so forth. Property law does not require physical property in order to be applicable. (IANAL, TINLA)

good, I'm glad. I hope when articles pop up about piracy, more people agree that it isn't just bits being transferred.