It'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.<p>--<p>MtGox was (past tense is <i>probably</i> appropriate here, but for the sake of anybody who had coins there, I hope not) a startup that failed <i>spectacularly</i>, and publicly, and took a TON of peoples' money with it.<p>The transaction malleability thing was poor programming on the part of gox. 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.<p>Mark, I doubt you read hacker news, but if you do: it's alright, dude. You bastard.
With credit to /r/bitcoin, I got a chuckle out of this one:<p><pre><code> Sorry, due to a major bug in the WWW protocol, our
website is temporarily unavailable. Thank you for
your patience while we await Al Gore's instruction!</code></pre>
I remember people getting angry whenever anyone pointed out that they were trusting a <i>whole lot</i> of their money to the Magic The Gathering Online Exchange.
Did anyone have a look at the (html) source? What does this comment mean?<p><i><!-- put announce for mtgox acq here --></i><p>Maybe mtgox has been acquired by another party?
I know little about Bitcoin (and its community) so please correct me where I'm wrong:<p>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.
So Mt. Gox has defrauded its users of half a BILLION dollars in value.<p>And, they've put out enough misinformation that those users believe "it wuz a hax0r that did it". So no cops, no jail sentences.<p>I believe this will go down in history as the largest fraud ever committed.<p>If you've been following this closely and you aren't writing the book already, you're missing out.
Its too early to say how this will go down in the end for Bitcoin (lawsuits, public policy, pricing, etc), but it certainly is a dark mark. Somewhere between management woes, terrible communication and technical ineptitude will make this a case study for the future for what not to do on all fronts.<p>All businesses have risk, but it would appear they took an amazing opportunity and squandered it entirely. To be at the forefront of an opportunity like this, and then to screw it up royally for yourself, your users and the community at large is simply tragic.<p>Much failure. Very wow.
So MtGox is basically confirming, that some online criminals have accumulated at least 6% of total Bitcoin market capital?<p>Not to count the drug dealers, cryptolockers, etc. The banksters are bad, but this kind of stuff isn't good for wider adoption. "Hey, invest in bitcoin and watch how the deflation will boost your friendly local crime empire!"
Questions I have now:<p>1) How likely is a cascade of bank runs on other exchanges?<p>2) Do other exchanges have security issues or insolvency that make them particularly vulnerable?<p>3) Will one of the other cryptocurrencies wax as confidence in BTC wanes?
What for me is the worst is that Mark Karpeles just rips his fucking site off the net, deletes the twitter feed and gives NO GODDAMN PUBLIC RESPONSE about any of this shit.<p>Regardless of who's at fault, what went wrong, etc. just some simple communication would be appreciated.<p>I seriously hope he's sleeping with one eye open. He sure as shit deserves everything that's coming to him right now. Good fucking luck if you make it out alive.
OP here.<p><Shameless Promo>
<a href="http://www.meetup.com/Bitcoin-Engineers/" rel="nofollow">http://www.meetup.com/Bitcoin-Engineers/</a><p>This is a meetup group I created. We had our first meeting last friday.
Would love to have another one this Friday - will hold it at a casual restaurant/bar on campus at Stanford.<p>(Disclosure - although I'm a cofounder of the Stanford Bitcoin Group this group is by me and NOT the SBG).<p></Shameless Promo>
So the OP is down, but if black hats truly made away with 700k BTC, they control some 700000/12440000 = 5.6% of existing bitcoins. If that's the case, is the original bitcoin blockchain really worth continuing?
At this point, the timeline of events greatly suggests that Mt. Gox's initial announcement of withdrawal freezing was the point at which they were officially dead. If the insolvency document is true, over 700,000 bitcoin was stolen, due to a bug in their cold storage (likely, it wasn't truly cold, but automated filling a hot wallet).<p>In the last two weeks, they were probably attempting to see if there was any way to reverse or mitigate the damage. This is the point at which they have determined that there is no 'out.' They have no where near the amount of bitcoin required to even service withdrawals.<p>Edit: <a href="http://support.mtgox.com/" rel="nofollow">http://support.mtgox.com/</a> now shows that their Zendesk account has been terminated (a new account can be registered at that address).
Well, it looks like that document was not a hoax:
<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/209050732/MtGox-Situation-Crisis-Strategy-Draft" rel="nofollow">http://www.scribd.com/doc/209050732/MtGox-Situation-Crisis-S...</a><p>Related:
<a href="http://blog.coinbase.com/post/77766809700/joint-statement-regarding-mtgox" rel="nofollow">http://blog.coinbase.com/post/77766809700/joint-statement-re...</a>
How this plays out will be very interesting. Sure, I've studied bank runs, and currency events in school, but to actually see it as it happens...I hope economists are paying attention, there could be some awesome research coming out of this whole event!
First time I visited mtgox.com was a few hours ago. Still have it open in my browser.<p>For the nostalgic:
<a href="http://imgur.com/a/qok0O" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/a/qok0O</a>
So...now that mt.gox is dead, does this mean mt gox employees are free from any non-disclosure agreements and can talk freely about what the hell happened?<p>Insider info would be greatly appreciated.
To me this demonstrates how powerful first mover advantage can be. Gox was showing cracks in the hull (actually more like gaping holes) for months and months. People have been repeatedly warned not to touch Gox with their funds. Other, more professional (so far) exchanges popped up. Yet people very much still used Gox. Were they ignorant, lazy, or stupid? I wish everyone who lost could get their money back, but it's really hard to have sympathy here.
Wow just watched this video of Kolin Burges from London who flew to Tokyo to find out, face to face, if he could withdraw his Bitcoins from Mt Gox. He makes an accurate prediction at the end, but this totally sucks for BTC. I was pretty optimistic about the future of it, but this is a pretty big speed bump.<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob9Ak1t09Ao" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob9Ak1t09Ao</a>
I do believe Mark Karpelès' LinkedIn Summary is due for an update:<p>"... I have a long experience in company creation, and experienced almost any imaginable kind of trouble. Now is the time to create something that will be solid enough to handle any situation, anytime."
So, who the other day said they would be buying if BTC felt bellow 500$?<p>Now seems to be the time if they still believe that arbitrary value still makes sense.
Everyone on this thread is being way too nice about this guy. He deserves to go to jail for a very long time.
He knowingly took money from people even after problems were discovered, and said nothing about it. And after the implosion he has still not fessed up to the truth! He deserves what he gets. I'm sure a movie will be made about this debacle st some stage in the future, but this chap doesn't get to become a motivational speaker in the end.
Slight drop over the last few hours
<a href="http://bitcoinwisdom.com/" rel="nofollow">http://bitcoinwisdom.com/</a><p>I'm curious if this will create a run on bitcoin or not? All of the funds from MtGox have in theory already been lost. There may be some fear that other networks will follow, but it may be rational that the price would remain level as one failed bank does not equal a failed currency.
BTW, why all this "you lost your coins" talk? if you have valid, in any way documented claims against MtGox, you should be able to sue and get some form of compensation... unfortunately, the unregulated nature of Bitcoin, the fact that the company might not have any property... ah, forget it.<p>edit - basically, MtGox lost money. for it's users, there might be a chance to get something back.
Have anyone started analyzing the blockchain for these suspicious 'leaks' out of Gox? This might be one of the addresses: <a href="https://blockchain.info/address/1Drt3c8pSdrkyjuBiwVcSSixZwQtMZ3Tew" rel="nofollow">https://blockchain.info/address/1Drt3c8pSdrkyjuBiwVcSSixZwQt...</a><p>You can see that over the past months there has been tons of large transfers out to addresses (<a href="https://blockchain.info/address/1pnHxHzRQ1uE4rH9KtxYKhVDic2SFijno" rel="nofollow">https://blockchain.info/address/1pnHxHzRQ1uE4rH9KtxYKhVDic2S...</a>) that end up splitting up into tons of small addresses, all of which has never spent a dime. From the look of it, it seems that a huge part of the total 782,558 BTC going through the address has ended up in tiny addresses which has never spent any part of it. Are there any other plausible owners of such an account?
The tendency of institutions to deny, cover up and conceal systems exploitation is one of the major failing of contemporary culture.<p>This is how we lied ourselves into thinking that the iOS SSL stack was trustworthy and it applies equally to the Mt. Gox situation.
Ok, at the risk of sounding completely naive...<p>I've been following this story for a while, and it seems that no one can say for sure if this is embezzlement or gross incompetence. Based on leaked memos it seems to be most people are learning towards the latter, but I'm curious if there's any evidence either way.<p>Based on the claimed transparency of Bitcoin, I would have expected embezzlement on this scale to have been noticed earlier, or at the very least have people be able to follow the Bitcoin trail to determine what is actually happening.<p>Am I wrong or just missing something?
How do we know that the mgmt hasn't run away with a whole load of coin? They may really have lost a lot; they may really not be able to continue; but how do we know that they lost <i>everything</i>?
<html>
<head>
<title>MtGox.com</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- put announce for mtgox acq here -->
</body>
</html>
They still have my 6 BTC. Oh well, it didn't really cost me anything to get those coins, and it taught me a valuable lesson about trusting a system with no customer protections.
My understanding is that if a majority of the miners agree, certain reversals can be made to the Bitcoin economy. Is this a situation which would benefit from such a reversal?
You guys have any idea on how to proceed if you (allegedly) have a few BTC and USD there?<p>Yeah yeah I know, I read HN often but obviously I missed the "Stay away from Gox" posts :(
Frankly I am surprised so many people in this community were so incredibly stupid and blind about Gox. Months and months ago when I was deciding to get into BTC I researched the exchanges and people were complaining about difficulties withdrawing from Gox. I just had this instinctive feeling that it was a big red flag and I would rather deal with a regulated albeit slow broker (Coinbase) where I can actually get my money back.
In the comments there are some examples of large losses due to technical or software failures:<p>- Knight Capital Group
- Mizuho Securities
- HyperVM<p>Anyone knows more cases?
And there's a new statement on the website:<p>Dear MtGox Customers,<p>In the event of recent news reports and the potential repercussions on MtGox's operations and the market, a decision was taken to close all transactions for the time being in order to protect the site and our users. We will be closely monitoring the situation and will react accordingly.<p>Best regards,
MtGox Team
If 700,000 BTC were really stolen over a long term, the people running mtgox must be complete idiots. How hard is it to occasionally add up the amount in the wallet and compare to the customer DB balances?<p>You would think this would be done hourly (if not, at least daily) as part of sanity check / auditing process.
Most links are still valid, like this one for their (last?) announcement:<p><a href="https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20140220-Announcement.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20140220-Announcement.pdf</a>
The excellent "Blame it on Mt.Gox" music video from last spring seems rather topical again:<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2ku1A5Ox8U" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2ku1A5Ox8U</a>
So there is alot of talk about coins being lost. I converted all my coins to litecoin a while ago, but I think I had some yen in my account. What is the likely hood of me getting that back.
The big questions now, what does this mean for BTC prices and which exchanges can still be trusted? Perhaps a good time to invest after the inevitable collapse tomorrow.
Last time I've lost coins with exchange (bitomat.pl) MtGox stepped in and covered the losses in full. I wonder if anyone will save my bitcoins now.
Will anyone be able to get their bitcoins from MtGox?<p>They said the bitcoins were safe. What changed? Will they be transferred eventually? What are the chances?
the api still returns information:<p><a href="http://data.mtgox.com/api/2/BTCUSD/money/ticker_fast?pretty" rel="nofollow">http://data.mtgox.com/api/2/BTCUSD/money/ticker_fast?pretty</a>
so, in time, bitcoin exchanges will become regulated. and in some more time, the irony might dawn on the libertarians.<p>but on a serious note, growing pains, i guess. i am sorry for people who lost their money.