Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it has been that great.
Well, look at the alternatives.
I have. I think there are better ones.
MtGox.com is offline
461–470 of 553 posts
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Does this mean we shouldn't trust "coldtea" to develop anything? Of course you shouldn't. If you were to here him (well, me) you'd ask for my CV -- if not an interview also. And if it was like "developed some random toy stuff" you wouldn't hire me to develop a money exchange playing with other people's millions of dollars. And if you were to assess if you will put $10,000 in a financial online service made by me, m…
> I mean, it might be prejudice, but "Ives, Rockefeller and Berstein" as a financial service just feels more secure than "$uper7eetMoneyMakah", "LuvFlamingoes" or "MagicalTux". How do you feel about "Bear Stearns" or "Lehman Brothers"?
Much more comfortable than MagicalTux. For one they have the clout to get trillion dollar bailouts from the government.
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#463It'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…
There is no fucking way 700,000 BTC disappears with nobody noticing. This must have been building for a long time. Was there never any attempt to compare BTC in wallets to customer balances? Or did MtGox know about this problem, and hope to cover it up over time? Either case is at least gross negligence if not criminal fraud. Yes, we all fuck up at some point. But I don't pretend to be a surgeon and perforate a patie…
> Either case is at least gross negligence if not criminal fraud.
To echo the original commenter: Yes, jail sounds like a reasonable end to this — but keep it restrained.
> No sympathy for Karpeles.
No, certainly not for hiding his incompetence, but I think the point was more: don't be too graphic in wishing him to discover what sex in jail can be. That’s an… understandable reaction, but inappropriate on a public forum. He’s got family who cares about his well-being, and the next days are going to be tough for them too. Imagine talking to his mother, or children: the facts, they are going to need them to understand, but nothing violent or tasteless (and I think you did a great job).
> But I don't pretend to be a surgeon and perforate a patient's aorta.
He didn't kill anyone; I'm sure one can save a lot of lives with that kind of money, but… I’d rather see you compare him to Kerviel (I'd disagree) or that Barings' trader (closer). The Head of security at Target, or Sony might be more accurate cases.
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, trusting a third party with your money, whether MtGox or the US Fed, is a bad idea.
the Fed is not a third party w.r.t USD. its the first party. the Fed is the entity in direct control of the monetary supply. the Fed is also the entity politically mandated to protect the money supply against inflation and deflation.
> the Fed is not a third party w.r.t USD. its the first party.
Its a trusted third party with regard to most use of USD as money -- that is, its use by market participants in exchange for goods and services.
> the Fed is also the entity politically mandated to protect the money supply against inflation and deflation.
Well, yeah, that official role (combined with its past history of performance in the role) is a big part of why its a trusted third party in the use of USD as money.
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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.
Sorry. I know the magnitude of Madoff's scam. I accidentally a word or two. What I wanted to write was something like, this would be the largest successful fraud (=no one goes to jail). Mt. Gox seems to have convinced everyone that "a hacker" took all the money, and now the insiders can retire to a non-extraditing country somewhere.
> What I wanted to write was something like, this would be the largest successful fraud (=no one goes to jail).
Why would no one go to jail?
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Only given an unacceptably broad interpretation of the word "Ponzi." Fraud is the one you're looking for.
Ponzi schemes are a form of fraud, sure, but the particular kind of fraud under discussion shares the key features of a Ponzi scheme, since its sustainable exactly as long as there is a sufficient net inflow of money from the outside to cover the money being extracted by uncontrollable losses.
The only difference from a traditional Ponzi scheme is that in such a scheme the extraction is to the fraudsters pockets, rather than to the fraudsters incompetence.
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#467Hello, downsides of unregulated currency. Some of the rules are there for a reason.
Businesses fail all the time. Most startups fail. Should we have more startup regulation? Failure is a normal part of the market. What's really scary are the businesses that are never allowed to fail.
> Businesses fail all the time. Most startups fail. Should we have more startup regulation?
No, I want regulations for all other industries except my own. My industry is fine.
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's being ignorant about it and tries to blame others for the mess MtGox caused. On a speculative note, he'll propably walk out of this with millions in his pockets, while his customers lost tons of cash due to this mess.
I don't know much about Japanese law, but in the US, there are times when it's deemed necessary to "pierce the corporate veil". If he's got assets, I suspect people will go after them ... though it might take him 3 years to notice his personal accounts are empty. The other possibility is that he's incompetent in his personal life too ... maybe his paychecks have all been spent? (I hear gaming cards are collectible!)
A bargain in Keyhole Downs is always too good to be true.
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This happens with dollars all the time too. But we hold people accountable. You mean like the bank bailouts, and all the money that "went missing" from that?
You mean like how we made a profit from them?[0] [0]: http://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list
Who is this "we" you speak of?
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#470Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of people in the Bitcoin community have been saying for years to not touch MtGox with a ten foot pole.
Not loudly enough. I remember reading lots of stuff about how Mt. Gox was where it's at.
Did you really? I literally don't think I've ever seen anyone recommend MtGox outside of mass media reports, but I might be wrong. I remember seeing online conversations (I think it was either a forum or IRC) from 3 or 4 years ago where the people making MtGox were basically bragging about how incompetent they are, and everyone else was doing a collective facepalm. As far as I can tell, they got a first-mover advantage, which got them into basically every media mention of Bitcoin, which compounded and led to them being the largest exchange for a long time. But my honest impression is that the Bitcoin community has been wary of MtGox for essentially as long as it has existed.