The longer I look at it, the more Bitcoin looks like a scheme to enrich criminals and enable rogue states to do business. Does it help the world economy that a large handful of people who go into bitcoin early now are controlling millions of dollars that they would have otherwise never, ever seen?<p>And what of Bitcoins benefits? Anonymous? Not for normal people on coinbase/etc.
Fast? Nope.
Convenient for shopping? Not unless you are on overstock.com or buying magic mushrooms on silk road.
Politically viable? China isn't having it.<p>Can someone tell me what Bitcoin is good for again?
This seems to be important, from the comments:<p>>Paul Wasensteiner • an hour ago<p>>Joseph you need to correct this bullshit instantly. Mtgox creditors DID NOT "requested Karpeles and Mt. Gox to process refunds in Japanese yen rather than bitcoin". This is totally and utterly false! We submitted our claims for what we had on our accounts at the time that Mtgox closed in whatever currency we had (i.e. if our account had bitcoin in it, we submitted a claim for bitcoin), and most of us also requested to be paid out in bitcoin.<p>>Update this article immediately!
We didn't request for our claims to be converted to Yen. The Japanese court representative assigned to the bankruptcy determined the Bitcoin had to be assigned a yen value. He proposed a value that seemed reasonable at the time so most creditors agreed.<p>Almost all creditors I know, including myself, would prefer to claim Bitcoin instead of Yen but it was simply not allowed by the court. Back then it seemed not really important as the valuation was reasonable and we didn't suspect the process would take so long.<p>When it became clear that the process would take so long that the Bitcoin value would exceed the claims, people organized a legal defense to have the claims reevaluated, but it would be a very exceptional situation and it is unclear to me what the repercussions of such a precedent would be in Japanese law.<p>I hope that at least Mark would be convicted and the Japanese state would take from him whatever profits remain from the bankruptcy.
Here's what I don't understand: I specifically requested to be repaid in BTC at the time, you could state this on the claims form. I even opened an account on Kraken for this? So why would I not get the full amount in bitcoin?
This begs the question: if I go bankrupt, can I take whatever remaining funds I have to Vegas and gamble it until I come out ahead or lose it all?<p>The US government was required to sell the Bitcoin they seized from Silk Road. Should individuals/companies in bankruptcy?
I see often the question here: What would have happened if BTC went down to 2$?<p>The thing is:<p>If it goes down, he pays nothing.<p>If it goes up, he pays up to ~400$ per BTC. That's a hell of a call option in my eyes.<p>In order to avoid that, the responsible should have sold everything in the beginning or he should have set the claims to be in BTC upfront.<p>But you cannot keep speculating with other people's money for 5 years and keep the profits in case A or pay nothing in case B.<p>Now since case A happened, these profits are a consequence on the risk taken with other people's money, so it's also the profits of other people.
> However, after a strange turn of events, it turned out that creditors of Mt. Gox, or former bitcoin traders on the Mt. Gox exchange, requested an equivalent amount of bitcoin to be paid out in Japanese yen at the beginning of Mt. Gox liquidation proceedings. In simpler terms, creditors requested Karpeles and Mt. Gox to process refunds in Japanese yen rather than bitcoin, which has risen substantially in value since then.<p>Anyone has insights why did they do that? If they were owed 1 BTC, they then were supposed to be paid 1 BTC, why opt for Yen instead?<p>My assumption is it was because the last rally of 1k USD had come down to 400 by the time this came around and people felt they were owed equivalent value in fiat.
> Over the past three years, from 2014 to 2017, the price of bitcoin has increased exponentially, from around $400 to $7,000, by 17-fold.<p>This nonsensical sentence made me want to stop reading, esp. after the site requested notification privileges and popped a newsletter modal. Cryptocoin news sites do at least as much to undermine cryptocoin credibility as the billion-dollar scam that they're reporting on.
This seems like an unjust outcome. Shouldn't there be enough latitude for bankruptcy judges that they can respond to unusual situations such as the value of the assets rising to the point that everybody is earning money on the bankruptcy? Should Karpeles really be made a near-billionaire because he presided over the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars of other people's money?
Shouldn't they release the method they used to determine which reimbursement currency "won"? From what I understand, creditors were asked in a form which currency they prefer (yen or bitcoin).<p>People in the comments say the requested a Bitcoin reimbursement, but is it even possible for them to know what choice others made?
So, what would have happened if bitcoin had crashed to $0? Creditors would have received nothing because there would have been no value left to distribute? Instead he got a free "heads I win, tails you lose" exposure to bitcoin prices?