Bitcoin Forum

through all times?

bahoodles

Do you mean profit? Running an exchange like this is NOT cheap. Satoshidice is the gold mine. https://i.imgur.com/rRlVD.png

mtgox makes much more than satoshidice, basically gox makes 1% of the monthly volume, the volume is usually at least 1M BTC per month, some times more than that,
I've seen several 2M months. so gox makes at least 10k BTC per month. satoshidice makes about 2k-3k BTC per month and they depend on luck, they almost went bankrupt at the start, and had to raise house edge significantly. mtgox has two employee though, also they pay for pretty good hosting.

Gox released a "transparency report" mid-late last year which seemed to imply they're a massive money pit. I think this wasn't long after the massive hack, though. Probably in the black, at least, now. Seems all the competitor exchanges go out of business within a few months, either due to bank disputes, poor security practices, legal disputes, or scammy operations. Gox got pretty lucky when TradeHill ref spammers took advantage of Gox's compromise, and then TradeHill ended up having to shut down. Then there was widespread worry Gox was illiquid and running a fractional reserve operation a few months ago which they appear to've recovered from. Still, Gox chugs along through these problems with no apparent loss in steam.

Except for the lengthy delays in processing withdrawals.

1% of 1mn monthly volume is like 10k. Discounting their discounts, their expenses and so forth, MtGox is roughly in the ballpark of S.DICE.

2k BTC for employee and hosting would be more than enough. They still probably make 2-3 times satoshidice's profit.

I can't afford to use them anymore.

Their gross profit numbers probably look pretty good but they've spent huge amounts of money on legal costs and no anti-fraud system is perfect.  It would not surprise me if their balance sheet for the last year is barely in the black, given the costs of implementing tighter security last year, AML compliance, the legal fees for the French court case, etc plus the inevitable losses from the occasional fraud which slips through the system.  Growing any business involves significant costs and staff salaries are the least of it.

What has probably increased substantially over the last year as a result of MtGox spending all this money is the amount for which the exchange could be sold.