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Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox

bitcointalk.org

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Re: Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox

#51
post #36

The risk that something like this is what happened is why Bitcoin companies (and other companies that deal with money) should have mandatory vacation policies for employees. With a mandatory vacation policy, it's much harder to a single person to commit fraud, since keeping up a fraudulent scheme requires daily attention to create fake books and records. https://sourcegraph.com/blog/mandatory-vacation

And also use Gregory Maxwell's proof of solvency scheme: https://iwilcox.me.uk/2014/nofrac-orig

Re: Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox

#53
post #36

The risk that something like this is what happened is why Bitcoin companies (and other companies that deal with money) should have mandatory vacation policies for employees. With a mandatory vacation policy, it's much harder to a single person to commit fraud, since keeping up a fraudulent scheme requires daily attention to create fake books and records. https://sourcegraph.com/blog/mandatory-vacation

Yes, this is a good idea, but you need smart people auditing the books(system). The smart part is a problem. Industry hires too many credentialed fools. Hire a criminal to catch a criminal.

Re: Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because if government does not collapse there is nothing stopping them from printing all the money they need to cover their obligations.

Exactly, The first point that's not quite understood is that this generally stops the bank run because people don't feel worried about their money anymore (or not all given existing state insurance). The second point is that the "inflation of funds" actually didn't happen at the point when government printed money but at the point when the private institution multiplied the perceived amount of money in the system. Th…

The second point is that the "inflation of funds" actually didn't happen at the point when government printed money but at the point when the private institution multiplied the perceived amount of money in the system.

J.K. Galbraith refers to this as the "bezzle" in The Great Crash: 1929. It's the monetary surplus created by fraudulent transactions, and, he notes, nobody has a problem with it until reality asserts her presence.

Update: More on the bezzle, found an online reference.

In many ways the effect of the crash on embezzlement was more significant than on suicide. To the economist embezzlement is the most interesting of crimes. Alone among the various forms of larceny it has a time parameter. Weeks, months, or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is a period, incidentally, when the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. There is a net increase in psychic wealth.) At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in — or more precisely not in — the country’s businesses and banks. This inventory — it should perhaps be called the bezzle — amounts at any moment to many millions of dollars. It also varies in size with the business cycle. In good times people are relaxed, trusting, and money is plentiful. But even though money is plentiful, there are always many people who need more. Under these circumstances the rate of embezzlement grows, the rate of discovery falls off, and the bezzle increases rapidly. In depression all this is reversed. Money is watched with a narrow, suspicious eye. The man who handles it is assumed to be dishonest until he proves himself otherwise. Audits are penetrating and meticulous. Commercial morality is enormously improved. The bezzle shrinks...

Just as the boom accelerated the rate of growth, so the crash enormously advanced the rate of discovery. Within a few days, something close to a universal trust turned into something akin to universal suspicion. Audits were ordered. Strained or preoccupied behavior was noticed. Most important, the collapse in stock values made irredeemable the position of the employee who had embezzled to play the market. He now confessed.

J.K. Galbraith, The Great Crash: 1929, pp 132-133.

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1466583-the-great-crash...

And the association between Galbraith's bezzle and Bitcoin / Mt. Gox has already been made:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2014/02/bi...

For now, though, Bitcoin, like innumerable speculative vehicles before it, appears to be falling victim to what John Kenneth Galbraith, in his book on the 1929 stock market crash, referred to as “the bezzle.” In any economy, Galbraith noted, crookery and theft are present. But, particularly when money is plentiful and financial markets are rising, “the rate of embezzlement grows, the rate of discovery falls off and the bezzle increases rapidly.” It is only after the market falls and “audits are penetrating and meticulous” that much of this chicanery is uncovered.

Re: Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox

#55
post #27

i'm just (still) glad i didn't buy into the latest fad because of common sense. all stories aside i believe that bitcoin is unsafe - and that this has been /blatantly/ obvious since i first encountered it as a suggested method to launder money and fund criminal activity. don't buy unregulated 'currencies' with a strong history and incentive for money laundering and facilitating the black market. its violates the spir…

I'm somewhat glad as well, but only for the reason that I'm reasonably certain I wouldn't have been smart enough to see this coming and lost everything at mtgox.

Re: Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox

#56
post #48

I'm thinking about opening up an exchange for crypto-currencies with a guarantee that deposited coins are put directly into a cold wallet. The only drawback I can see is that (so far) I don't see an easy (and secure) way to make withdrawals instantaneous. Perhaps my background in hardware systems leads me to solutions that use physics to solve certain security problems, but to me, sending bitcoins to an unconnected c…

You can't put money directly into a cold wallet, if I understand correctly. If you can manipulate it directly then it's hot by definition.

Yes, you can, as long as you have an address (Public key). A wallet is just a private key.

The transaction history, and thus the ballance of an address is held in the blockchain, in the ether.

To spend the coins, you must have at hand:

* the current blockchain

* the private key

* a connection to the network.

Re: Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox

#57

Well, Regardless of how exactly it happened, I think the big thing is that anything that operates as "just an exchange" has the potential to operate as a fractional reserve bank instead (IE, just operate with enough money to cover day-to-day transactions and not-have/use-for-something the remaining funds people think you have in your vault). So basically, trusting any unregulated entity that claims to have stuff in i…

Couldn't a bitcoin exchange publish a list of accounts that they use to hold coins for customers, and similarly, request that their bank confirm that the sum of customer funds is greater than X? I mean, we might not see exactly the number of things we expect, but if it's holding over 95% of the value expected (through those mechanisms), and shows a successful trend of having increases when it claims and decreases whe…

Many poker sites do this for their fiat reserves. They hold player funds in a separate bank account that is regularly audited by a trusted third party.

For the exchanges crypto-currency reserves, a trusted third party isn't even necessarly. The exchange can use gmaxwell's "prove how (non)-fractional your Bitcoin reserves are” scheme [1], which allows them to cryptographically prove they are not fractional reserve.

The Mt. Gox bankruptcy will have positive long-term repercussions on the bitcoin community, because it will pressure honest exchanges to do the above to prove they have the funds to cover their deposits. Coinbase has already done this for their bitcoin reserves [2], albeit through a trusted third party rather than the cryptographic way.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7277865

[2] http://antonopoulos.com/2014/02/25/coinbase-review/

Re: Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox

#58
post #48

I'm thinking about opening up an exchange for crypto-currencies with a guarantee that deposited coins are put directly into a cold wallet. The only drawback I can see is that (so far) I don't see an easy (and secure) way to make withdrawals instantaneous. Perhaps my background in hardware systems leads me to solutions that use physics to solve certain security problems, but to me, sending bitcoins to an unconnected c…

You can't put money directly into a cold wallet, if I understand correctly. If you can manipulate it directly then it's hot by definition.

You can deposit directly into a cold wallet; you can't withdraw directly from a cold wallet.

Re: Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox

#59

I very much need a ;TLDR. Not through laziness but through hatred of the patronising prosaic style which stopped me reading.

VSDR--very short, did read. I once had a English teacher tell the class, 'just don't use cliches, or cute language'. I felt that was too strick, but I now understand the wisdom.

Re: Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox

#60
post #48

I'm thinking about opening up an exchange for crypto-currencies with a guarantee that deposited coins are put directly into a cold wallet. The only drawback I can see is that (so far) I don't see an easy (and secure) way to make withdrawals instantaneous. Perhaps my background in hardware systems leads me to solutions that use physics to solve certain security problems, but to me, sending bitcoins to an unconnected c…

You can use an HD wallet so that the online system holding an extended public key can receive BTC but not spend it. Then an offline system can sweep the incoming funds periodically.
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