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Fraudulent trading activity at Mt. Gox

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Re: Fraudulent trading activity at Mt. Gox

#81

Post by boyaka »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #26
CamperBob2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about "escaping all consequences," unless his idea of "escaping all consequences" is having to watch his back for the rest of his life. Seems like a pretty dumb way to make a few million bucks, IMHO.

It pains me to say this, but "dumb and evil" have been par for bitcoin thus far. The question is, will the situation change? It might. Many modern reliable systems grew out of shaky or illicit foundations. But that's little solace in the meantime.

Because Mt. Gox is totally the foundation of bitcoin rollseyes

Re: Fraudulent trading activity at Mt. Gox

#83

Post by boyaka »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #55
antonius wrote: post #4

Further proof that the absurd run-up in November when bitcoin reached $1,200 was illegitimate.

So why did it crash? Why didn't the fraudster just prop up the price?

Bitcoin has been pumped up and crashed 3 times. The fraudulent trading of Mt. Gox was only the most recent crash.

Re: Fraudulent trading activity at Mt. Gox

#84

Post by rtpg »

michaelt wrote: post #72
CamperBob2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about "escaping all consequences," unless his idea of "escaping all consequences" is having to watch his back for the rest of his life. Seems like a pretty dumb way to make a few million bucks, IMHO.

I don't know about "escaping all consequences," unless his idea of "escaping all consequences" is having to watch his back for the rest of his life. If I had stolen a few hundred million dollars from mtgox users and disappeared, my policy would be simple: Anyone who tracks me down and puts a gun in my mouth can have ten times their losses refunded, if they tell me how they found me. Twice their losses up front, eight…

alternatively, the guy with the gun will just want everything and you are left with nothing.

I think you might be overestimating the leverage you have with just your BTC

Re: Fraudulent trading activity at Mt. Gox

#85

Post by bthomas »

michaelt wrote: post #72
CamperBob2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about "escaping all consequences," unless his idea of "escaping all consequences" is having to watch his back for the rest of his life. Seems like a pretty dumb way to make a few million bucks, IMHO.

I don't know about "escaping all consequences," unless his idea of "escaping all consequences" is having to watch his back for the rest of his life. If I had stolen a few hundred million dollars from mtgox users and disappeared, my policy would be simple: Anyone who tracks me down and puts a gun in my mouth can have ten times their losses refunded, if they tell me how they found me. Twice their losses up front, eight…

.001% is enough...

Re: Fraudulent trading activity at Mt. Gox

#86

Post by sciguy77 »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #50
sciguy77 wrote: post #45

As one of the many people who lost money in the Gox implosion, this is nauseating to read. On a less related note, I heard they recovered 1/5 of the missing bitcoins awhile ago. Anyone know what will happen to that 1/5?

I've got your back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7777831 Our money was lost the moment we decided to transfer it to a third party. That 1/5 probably won't recover very much of it, if any of it, for reasons explored in that thread. Whether it's Mt. Gox or Coinbase, money we put into a webwallet is no longer ours. It's the legal entity's. If they go bankrupt, which can happen for a variety of reasons, sometimes…

Thanks for the information and advice. I figured as much, my hopes weren't too high. I don't think I'm going to be investing in anything like Bitcoin for a long time. Best of luck.

Re: Fraudulent trading activity at Mt. Gox

#87

Post by nl »

christianbryant wrote: post #63

Exactly the reason why technology must be open and transparent. Sadly, decision makers that define economic policy and allow organizations to reach this level of misuse (or misconduct) know little to nothing about what these technologies are capable of, or to what extent they can be compromised and manipulated. Kudos to the tech makers and users who do understand for maintaining a watchful eye and not hesitating to r…

Isn't this almost exactly the opposite of the problem here?

What appears to have happened here is something completely unrelated to the technology. The same thing could have happened in any financial exchange.

There were two difference that made it possible here: 1) the investors may have been technical experts but were financially naive and dramatically underpriced the risk, and 2) the market was completely unregulated, so the financially naive investors had no protection from those who weren't so naive.

Re: Fraudulent trading activity at Mt. Gox

#89

Post by qnr »

drcode wrote: post #11
antonius wrote: post #4

Further proof that the absurd run-up in November when bitcoin reached $1,200 was illegitimate.

Unfortunately this is plausible: The only reliable way to trigger a run-up in a commodity is to expend a lot of capital to acquire that asset at inflated prices- You'd have to "burn through" a lot of money to get this to happen. ...so, then where was this cache of money that was destroyed to inflate the price? It would have to be a pretty large quantity to have such a drastic impact. Occam's Razor to me suggests the…

Doesn't seem obvious to me at all. As a result of bankruptcy proceedings we know that Mtgox has lost primarily BTC deposits, not fiat (on mobile now, but IIRC only $27 million USD was lost which is peanuts compared to the value of lost BTC)

In other words, the situation at Mtgox was the opposite of what you describe: it had a lot of FakeBTC, bit its USD reserves were mostly real.

Re: Fraudulent trading activity at Mt. Gox

#90

Post by [deleted] »

drcode wrote: post #11
antonius wrote: post #4

Further proof that the absurd run-up in November when bitcoin reached $1,200 was illegitimate.

Unfortunately this is plausible: The only reliable way to trigger a run-up in a commodity is to expend a lot of capital to acquire that asset at inflated prices- You'd have to "burn through" a lot of money to get this to happen. ...so, then where was this cache of money that was destroyed to inflate the price? It would have to be a pretty large quantity to have such a drastic impact. Occam's Razor to me suggests the…

[deleted]
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