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Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

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Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#261

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

wpietri wrote: post #249
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you do realize that those arguments are for _bitcoin_ and not for _exchanges_? The decentralization of _bitcoin_ is supposedly an advantage precisely because _exchanges_ (like MtGox) and other central organizations like banks are prone to failure due to fraud and mismanagement. So, they are essentially saying "We need bitcoin because we don't want to trust institutions like MtGox because they might fail" and you…

I'm not saying that anybody who had money in Bitcoin is a hypocrite. But anybody who had money in MtGox, lost it, and now wants help getting it back is hypocritical if they were also singing the praises of Bitcoin in those ways. And that presuming that people with money in MtGox were Bitcoin proponents is not a giant stretch.

Where is there hypocrisy in that? I just can't see any.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#262

Post by miguelrochefort »

tlrobinson wrote: post #220
miguelrochefort wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you try to get your money out of MtGox? A friend of mine has been trying to get his money (CAD) out of MtGox for 2 months. He received his money yesterday.

Why the hell are they still processing withdrawals and simultaneously filing for bankruptcy?

MtGox might not be responsible for the delay. All I know is that he started the process months ago, they kept saying that "money was on the way", and he eventually received it.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#263

Post by dangrossman »

snorkel wrote: post #243
dangrossman wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was never a MTG trading card site on that domain. This is a myth you should stop spreading.

Well if that's so untrue then you should take your mythbusting campaign to the Mt Gox page on WikiPedia where it clearly states this was the original intent of their business. Mt Gox stands for "Magic The Gathering Online eXchange", does it not?

Stripe.com once hosted a gallery of Furby pictures. Does that mean we should blame any bugs in their payment platform on misbehaving toys? No, previous hypothetical uses of the domain (by a different owner no less; Jed McCaleb who registered the domain and Mark Karpeles who owns it today are different people) are irrelevant, and mtgox.com does not stand for that.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#264

Post by wpietri »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #261
wpietri wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying that anybody who had money in Bitcoin is a hypocrite. But anybody who had money in MtGox, lost it, and now wants help getting it back is hypocritical if they were also singing the praises of Bitcoin in those ways. And that presuming that people with money in MtGox were Bitcoin proponents is not a giant stretch.

Where is there hypocrisy in that? I just can't see any.

The kind I'm seeing is celebrating uncontrollability and then suddenly wanting the benefits of control.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#265

Post by elif »

It seems like the bitcoin community should collectively decide to not honor transactions for the stolen bitcoins.

Not only will it prevent the market from completely crashing as the thief eats up remaining buy orders, but it would moderately discourage future thieves if such a mechanism were in place.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#266

Post by contingencies »

res0nat0r wrote: post #260
nostromo wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The collapses we've seen with traditional currencies stem from the inherent risks of fractional-reserve lending. Is this a risk with Bitcoin? According to my limited understanding, it doesn't seem to be. That should in theory reduce the need for things like FDIC and complicated risk calculations, like counter-party risk. MtGox doesn't seem like a "bank failure" or "bank run" to me. It seems like a bank that forgot to…

At least if your money is held in an FDIC insured bank and the bank goes under, you can rely on the government to insure your investment. With bitcoin you have no such thing.

That sounds very smart, however if your money is held in an FDIC insured bank, then it's likely to be in a national currency that is systematically devalued by the issuing institution through progressive year-on-year inflation. (Note that I use the term institution instead of government as two major issuers, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, are private organizations).

PS. I'm not characterizing inflation as bad, nor am I a goldbug. I am merely pointing out that the entire population of FDIC-insured banks are paying constantly for the mystical "it might happen some day" promise of a bailout, due to an inflationary system that reserves priveleged access to a central clique - ie. it's not like the conservative viewpoint of "faith in !" comes without strings. (I am most aware of this perspective as someone who used to live with someone on the interest rate committee for the Bank of England.)

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#267

Post by jeffool »

mbillie1 wrote: post #145
enscr wrote: post #115

I feel bad for Mark Karpeles but the way MtGox communicated & lied to its users makes me sad. It's those nameless individuals who believed in him, whose trust was betrayed - those are the ones that deserve the affection of the community. I've been following the news and I think MtGox was handling so much money that they should have focused on better security practices and audits. Few examples of their lackadaisical a…

> and some people stood to lose their entire savings. While I am not defending MtGox, having your entire life savings wrapped up in Bitcoin is hardly a sound, proven financial decision and evokes absolutely zero sympathy whatsoever. Losing it all in a get-rich-quick frenzy is sad - but it's sad in a "I can't believe people are willing to bet their lives on this" way, not a "this poor person lost his/her entire life s…

And in the same vein, while I'm not defending those who put their entire life savings into Bitcoin, to put their entire balance into an online wallet strikes me as the worse way to go about that. Paper wallets aren't comparable to dollar bills. They're comparable to security vaults from everyone online who would seek to separate people from their money.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#268

Post by res0nat0r »

contingencies wrote: post #266
res0nat0r wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least if your money is held in an FDIC insured bank and the bank goes under, you can rely on the government to insure your investment. With bitcoin you have no such thing.

That sounds very smart, however if your money is held in an FDIC insured bank, then it's likely to be in a national currency that is systematically devalued by the issuing institution through progressive year-on-year inflation. (Note that I use the term institution instead of government as two major issuers, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, are private organizations). PS. I'm not characterizing inflation…

I'll bet on the long term stability of the US government over that of MtGox or Coinbase anytime.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#269

Post by fivethree »

contingencies wrote: post #266
res0nat0r wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least if your money is held in an FDIC insured bank and the bank goes under, you can rely on the government to insure your investment. With bitcoin you have no such thing.

That sounds very smart, however if your money is held in an FDIC insured bank, then it's likely to be in a national currency that is systematically devalued by the issuing institution through progressive year-on-year inflation. (Note that I use the term institution instead of government as two major issuers, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, are private organizations). PS. I'm not characterizing inflation…

Inflation isn't bad and the only people that think it is are goldbugs with no understanding of economics. Asset backed currency have had MANY more crashes than fiat currencies. Bitcoin is a wonderful experiment in how long it will take people to learn the lessons the world learned over the previous 200~ years.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#270

Post by dragonwriter »

fab13n wrote: post #192
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71

When you make a deposit you are extending credit. In the case of Mt. Gox, or any other Bitcoin exchange, that credit is secured by nothing and insured by noöne. Advice, going forward, for managing counterparty risk: (1) Split a $100 transaction into 10 $10* transactions executed incrementally (send $10 of BTC to Mt. Gox, exchange it, transfer it out, and only then send the next $10 of BTC over). This keeps exposure a…

The main feature of BTC is that it's unregulated, so indeed, if you don't provide the security usually enforced by governments, there isn't any. Usually, when using online services such as MtGox, you're secured by the fact that their reputation is worth more than what they can scam out of you. It's vital for eBay, AirBnB, the Silk Road etc. that you trust them, so they won't let an horror story unfold publicly just t…

> The main feature of BTC is that it's unregulated

The main feature of BTC is that, independently of regulation by any other entity that may be applied to it, it is "regulated" by the design of the protocol, which, among other things, provides decentralized issuance and transaction verification, and predefined supply constraints.

A popular myth about BTC is that it is unregulated (and, in some forms of the myth, impossible to regulate) by government.

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