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MtGox.com is offline

mtgox.com

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Re: MtGox.com is offline

#151
post #68

It's really easy in all of this to pile a bunch of hatred on Mark Karpeles, but please, everybody remember that he is a human being, with real human emotions, and that those things really do hurt. -- MtGox was (past tense is probably appropriate here, but for the sake of anybody who had coins there, I hope not) a startup that failed spectacularly , and publicly, and took a TON of peoples' money with it. The transacti…

Yes, if I have any schadenfreude here it's not for him. It's for all of the people who smugly told us for years that Bitcoin is superior to our "legacy" fiat managed and regulated monetary system system in every way, and anyone who can't see that is an idiot.

Yes, trusting a third party with your money, whether MtGox or the US Fed, is a bad idea.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#152
post #68

It's really easy in all of this to pile a bunch of hatred on Mark Karpeles, but please, everybody remember that he is a human being, with real human emotions, and that those things really do hurt. -- MtGox was (past tense is probably appropriate here, but for the sake of anybody who had coins there, I hope not) a startup that failed spectacularly , and publicly, and took a TON of peoples' money with it. The transacti…

On some level, if you lose many life savings worth of wealth through what I can only assume was gross negligence and incompetence, you should expect the hatred. It's not like you can lose hundreds of millions of dollars -- or even tens, for the pedants who want us to take the integral of the value through the buy side of the order book -- through an honest mistake. He deserves the infamy he's getting.

The point is that these people are people - have some compassion.

I failed in my last startup, fairly publicly, and got a fair amount of internet hatred, and suffice to say I was not a happy bunny. But I didnt fail with remotely the publicity this got - I can't even imagine what the mtgox people must be feeling.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason the SEC mandates you be an "accredited" investor with at least $200k income in the last 2 years or $1M in assets, excluding your house. How many customers ("investors") would Mt. Gox have if that same regulation was applied to them?

This is totally different from an accredited investment. People using Mt.Gox were not investing in Mt.Gox, they were investing in USD and BTC, and allowing Mt.Gox to hold it for them.

> This is totally different from an accredited investment.

Well obviously. And it turns out the regulations are different too!

The need for regulations is what we are discussing here.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#154
post #40

Questions I have now: 1) How likely is a cascade of bank runs on other exchanges? 2) Do other exchanges have security issues or insolvency that make them particularly vulnerable? 3) Will one of the other cryptocurrencies wax as confidence in BTC wanes?

1) A "bank run" on an exchange should be a non event because all exchanges should have the money they claim to have.

2) I'm skeptical of any exchange I don't know a lot about

3) Is there another cryptocurrency that offers significant additional features over BTC? Right now I don't see it. In the future there is certain to be.

Tomorrow Mt Gox's failure should hit the mainstream press. There should be very harsh coverage and panic selling. The more speculators who are cleared out of the system, the better.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#155
post #95
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not aware of any indication that this was a ponzi scheme. Saying that it was, without evidence, is misinformation. The loss of coins was unintentional on the behalf of MtGox. It may have been stupid that basic abc123 auditing would have probably revealed that there was a problem months/years ago, but evil has not been shown at this point in time.

An exchange that manipulates it's market to hide away losses and try to shore up it's balances starts to look a lot like a ponzi scheme after awhile.

It does. . . but I think there's still plenty of room for Hanlon's Razor to remain in effect here.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#158

So Mt. Gox has defrauded its users of half a BILLION dollars in value. And, they've put out enough misinformation that those users believe "it wuz a hax0r that did it". So no cops, no jail sentences. I believe this will go down in history as the largest fraud ever committed. If you've been following this closely and you aren't writing the book already, you're missing out.

>I believe this will go down in history as the largest fraud ever committed.

Madoff was estimated at ~$65b, the Enron settlement was $7.1b, Lehmen folded with $600b in assets, Comp-u-card overstated income and costed investors $14b, etc. etc.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#159

In a strange way, I feel this merits the HN black bar treatment if only because of its historical import.

What is the "black bar" treatment

When someone prominent in the hacking community dies HN puts a black bar at the top of the page as a memorial.

It's not appropriate here. A human life and money are not comparable no matter how much money.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#160
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if I have any schadenfreude here it's not for him. It's for all of the people who smugly told us for years that Bitcoin is superior to our "legacy" fiat managed and regulated monetary system system in every way, and anyone who can't see that is an idiot.

Yes, trusting a third party with your money, whether MtGox or the US Fed, is a bad idea.

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