Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of people in the Bitcoin community have been saying for years to not touch MtGox with a ten foot pole.
{{weasel words}}{{whom}}
Plenty of threads on HN.
MtGox.com is offline
271–280 of 553 posts
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're forgetting the 3 trillion the US government stole from its citizens and gave to the banks.
TARP was only about 250 billion and it's been repaid with interest. It was neither stolen nor given. If you're including various stabilization programs the Fed put into place, that money was neither stolen nor given either. It was created using sovereign authority that is granted to the Federal Reserve by law. The citizens of the US would be immensely poorer today if the world financial system had collapsed into a se…
Oooh, SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY GRANTED BY LAW. That definitely makes the rape of the middle class to bailout Goldman Sachs legit.
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#273If they took money from depositors after they knew they were insolvent they probably broke the law.
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#274Earlier 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.
If they continued to take in deposits after they knew they were insolvent, it was a ponzi scheme. Every ponzi operator dreams of earning themselves to solvency.
I am pretty sure this sort of practice is illegal bitcoin or not.
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#275Re: MtGox.com is offline
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if we can raise $7m we can kill you? Seriously, the accounting fictions used for various economic analyses don't directly apply in the real world.
Actually, they do - courts award damages for loss of life all the time, and calculating such economic loss is a basic skill of practicing tort law. A person's life is almost always infinitely valuable to the individual in question, but for everyone else it's surprisingly calculable. A gloomy business, but a necessary one all the same -life still goes on for the survivors, and at some point accountings are made and pe…
Sorry, but that is not what I'd include in the real world, not in the sense that is relevant to this thread. Economic loss is not the only kind of loss.
Which is why this $500m loss is not the same as 71.43 deaths, even if that many deaths might result in a $500m settlement.
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#277It'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…
> Remember that we have ALL fucked up at some point, just luckily for most of us, "fucking up" doesn't mean losing than much of other peoples' money.
Most of us also don't get filthy rich losing other peoples' money.
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#278I know little about Bitcoin (and its community) so please correct me where I'm wrong: If MtGox can publish all stolen Bitcoin, would it make it impossible for whoever with them to use them? Although Bitcoin is not regulated, stealing them still violates laws right? And since everything is kept track by the entire Bitcoin network, whoever uses it can't keep anonymous.
There's Bitcoin laundering. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service
To be effective only tiny amounts of the 700k bitcoins would be able to be hidden
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#279Earlier 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.
MtGox had to code custom software to interact with the bitcoin network because of their size. They coded it wrong and allowed a bug that could (and did) wipe them of their money. How is it the bitcoin network's fault?
Could bitcoin function as a viable replacement for today's money/monetary system without entities like MtGox ?
Not functioning technically but functioning pragmatically.
(honest question, I am an economic newbie)
Re: MtGox.com is offline
#280It'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…
Today it's transaction malleability. Tomorrow it's something else. Bitcoin is an experiment. Those seeking to turn it into a ponzi scheme are pretending as if it's a reliable currency or investment. Their is no accountability in the Bitcoin ecosystem. If you transfer your coins anywhere you should consider them gone. The only "safe" coin is a cold storage coin. The second it goes hot it's at risk. The second you send…
The only "safe" coin is a cold storage coin.
Even that is not safe, because the value ultimately depends on confidence in the currency as a whole. Money is a social construct; you can never safely hold it with no fear of loss, even in cold storage or under your mattress. As you say, this happens with every currency, but we introduce regulations to limit the fallout.
This is a lesson that many alternative currency fans are learning today.