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New message from Mt. Gox

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Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#41

Post by wpietri »

swombat wrote: post #29
fennecfoxen wrote: post #28

CONSPIRACY THEORY TIME. What if Mt. Gox didn't really lose a post-Panamax boatload of Bitcoin (just a small amount)? They're just manufacturing a panic so they can buy Bitcoins at fire-sale prices, declare "We have all the BitCoin we need after all, we fixed our bug, everything's fiiiine" and maybe even turn a cash profit on the upside?

If there was any evidence of that they'd go to jail for a long time - even if bitcoin is not directly regulated, I'm sure there are still some anti-fraud regulations that would kick in...

Which statement do you think is fraudulent?

They could actually have lost the bitcoins. They could be still having technical problems.

Fennecfoxen's theory could be illegal market manipulation, but I wouldn't be surprised if the BTC market is weird enough that it doesn't fit under the laws against that. Or at least that it'd be such a mess to prosecute that prosecutors would all find something better for their careers to do.

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#42

Post by Udo »

I'm one of those who lost a good amount on MtGox. It wasn't in there because I thought they are a bank, I put it there because I like to speculate from time to time. As such I was prepared to lose most if not all of it anyway. I didn't expect things to go wrong so thoroughly, but still that was the premise of my deposits there.

So from that perspective, I'm not really mad about them losing the money. It's unfortunate, it even really sucks, but shit happens. Sometimes that shit is an apocalyptic event.

What makes me angry though is their utter failure to communicate, to admit what happened. I feel like they're taunting their ex customers, or at the very least they don't give a crap about anything at all. That's what's really off-putting, and that's what breeds speculation about them being the ones who perpetrated the theft in the first place (which I personally don't believe). Instead what we see here is an absolute non-message from them.

It's like this Seinfeld episode with the shirt at the dry cleaners. We know they shrunk it, they know they shrunk it, so they should just come right out and admit "we shrunk it"!

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#43

Post by dcosson »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #28

CONSPIRACY THEORY TIME. What if Mt. Gox didn't really lose a post-Panamax boatload of Bitcoin (just a small amount)? They're just manufacturing a panic so they can buy Bitcoins at fire-sale prices, declare "We have all the BitCoin we need after all, we fixed our bug, everything's fiiiine" and maybe even turn a cash profit on the upside?

They also mentioned buying back at low prices in one of those leaked documents.

What I don't understand is why people would continue selling at any reasonable volumes at firesale prices when other exchanges are doing "fine" (Bitstamp down ~25% vs 2 months ago). Unless I misunderstand it, the malleability bug won't prevent sending btc to other wallets. Is mtgox going to block their users from sending btc and only allow them to sell internally? That would be pretty much equivalent to seizing all their users' coins. Is it just the combination of lots people who own small enough amounts of btc not to care going "fuck it, I just want out"? People not trusting other exchanges after this, or betting that other exchanges will crash too before they can get accounts verified at them and sell their coins?

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#45

Post by wpietri »

obsession wrote: post #27
malka wrote: post #10

I would not like to be in the shoes of mtgox CEO... He lost about 400M USD, some of them probably belonging to shady peoples (drug dealer, mobs, etc.)

Even if you were a shady drug dealer, revenge doesn't get your money back.

The reason I trust normal contracts to work is that I pay for guys with guns to enforce them. I call them "police", and my payments "tax". But if you are doing deals that are illegal, you have to provide your own enforcement.

The rational interest of a criminal here wouldn't be revenge. It would be reputation maintenance. The reason mafia loan sharks are known for breaking kneecaps isn't that they're personally upset, or that they can't afford the loss. It's that they can't afford anybody else thinking that their loans are something they can walk away from.

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#46

Post by kome »

swombat wrote: post #29
fennecfoxen wrote: post #28

CONSPIRACY THEORY TIME. What if Mt. Gox didn't really lose a post-Panamax boatload of Bitcoin (just a small amount)? They're just manufacturing a panic so they can buy Bitcoins at fire-sale prices, declare "We have all the BitCoin we need after all, we fixed our bug, everything's fiiiine" and maybe even turn a cash profit on the upside?

If there was any evidence of that they'd go to jail for a long time - even if bitcoin is not directly regulated, I'm sure there are still some anti-fraud regulations that would kick in...

> I'm sure there are still some anti-fraud regulations that would kick in...

I don't know, but I don't think so. For the law you may be trading in monopoly money at your risk.

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#47

Post by smrtinsert »

ekianjo wrote: post #19
malka wrote: post #10

I would not like to be in the shoes of mtgox CEO... He lost about 400M USD, some of them probably belonging to shady peoples (drug dealer, mobs, etc.)

Well that's what people say, yet I haven't seen lots of executives in large companies where scandals have occurred suddenly getting randomly killed by hitmen in the streets. And Madoff's still alive, too.

Executives of large banks have the protection of the larger system to fall back on, Mt Gox, not so much.

Madoff swindled the rich iirc.

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#48

Post by k-mcgrady »

alexchamberlain wrote: post #12

So I have n bitcoins and $x in MtGox; will I get this back? Will there be a haircut? Is MtGox winding down? So many questions...

If there was a chance they could fix this they wouldn't have posted a completely meaningless bullshit message. My guess is that they know it's over, are consulting with lawyers, and are trying to cover their own asses. Being honest would probably hurt them at this stage.

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#49

Post by paborden »

swombat wrote: post #29
fennecfoxen wrote: post #28

CONSPIRACY THEORY TIME. What if Mt. Gox didn't really lose a post-Panamax boatload of Bitcoin (just a small amount)? They're just manufacturing a panic so they can buy Bitcoins at fire-sale prices, declare "We have all the BitCoin we need after all, we fixed our bug, everything's fiiiine" and maybe even turn a cash profit on the upside?

If there was any evidence of that they'd go to jail for a long time - even if bitcoin is not directly regulated, I'm sure there are still some anti-fraud regulations that would kick in...

Yeah, regulated or not, that would almost certainly qualify as wire fraud, at the very least.
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