Bitcoin Forum

I've just tried to move Bitcoins from Mt.Gox.


What the hell?  All that I've been saying about Bitcoins turns out to be untrue.  There are still gatekeepers imposing arbitrary limits on what I can and can't do with my own money.

If I want to move $5000, say, from the US to GBP in the UK.  I can use a bank.  That takes at least a day.  Should I want to do the same using Bitcoins, I've been boasting that I can beat the banking system no problem.  An hour at most.

Turns out that's rubbish.  I've got to wait (I presume) another day now to move those coins.  A day in Bitcoin time is glacial.  In that time, the GBP price could have changed dramatically.

Tell me, what is the point of Bitcoins if it isn't to get away from this nonsense?

Tell me, how am I going to preserve my anonymity if I have to email someone to get my "authorisation level" increased.

Tell me, why do I need authorisation to access MY MONEY.

Tell me, how was I meant to know about this before I attempted it?  There were no warnings.

All the more reason that we desperately need a competitor to Mt. Gox.  Mt. Gox won't be able to handle everything pretty soon...

What a surprise that a business is trying to follow the laws so they can continue to make money instead of get ass-pounded for it.

Bitcoin is not a license to violate laws, sorry.

Don't blame Mt. Gox, blame the U.S. government. Tux is only following anti-money laundering laws, and to not collect more personal info from you (Like SS#), they have limits that they abide by. If you need those limits raised, thats why you need to contact them.

Furthermore Mt. Gox is NOT bitcoin, only an exchanger, and once your coins are freely in YOUR wallet, you'll be free to send them wherever to whoever and however much you want.

Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous, not mtgox.

Because if mtgox makes more than 1000 USD worth of transactions per customer per day it has to register as a Money Services Business under american law. And this is even making me wonder how they can legally "raise the limit" for certain customers.

This is a legitimate complaint though.

This has nothing to do with AML it has to do with getting an MSB license.

I asked a question about the limits on some other thread, as of now I didn't get any answer even though subsequent posts were addressed. On a more general manner I think mtgox should be much much clearer about how exactly they operate, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they're proactively hiding this information, I'm saying that nothing is done to make it clear. To be completely honest, MagicalTux did answer pretty straightforwardly when asked about how transfers to their french bank account were managed.

I'm shocked by this ..

It's understandable that they have a USD withdrawal limit (understandable to the extent of the violence threatened otherwise). But why a BTC limit? Is the limit tied to the current exchange rate? Interesting ..

Because that's what they need to do to follow the law.

Because it's considered a store of value

I think it is.

Hi,

I got out of a long meeting with a couple of accountants, a lawyer and a corporate specialist (dunno how to translate that from Japanese in a more accurate way).

We finally reached a conclusion on Bitcoin, and will be finally able to provide a ToS on MtGox.

Until now I have been regulating the flow of bitcoins as it could have been considered a currency (interpretation by popular definition) which would have been really bad.

We have been able to confirm that Bitcoin is /not/ a currency as per Japanese law at this point, and the most accurate definition is a security (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_(finance)).


Because of this we will apply new limits to bitcoin withdrawals, with a different ability to lift this limit. This means it will be much easier to withdraw bitcoins soon (need to finish the ToS first).



Mark

Will you also be able to provide deposits via Credit and Debit cards soon as well?

Not anytime soon.

Glad to see you back.  Mean some of those pending transactions will get process? :)

Which pending transactions?

I have a question for you Mark (if it's not already birru-time in japan) : when are japanese and american laws relevant to mtgox operations since there are at least two companies involved in mtgox operations, one in the US and one in Japan ?

The US company only acts as a commercial intermediary, and has no implication in the actual bitcoin exchange, just like the European company. It's hard enough to get the exchange legal in one country, we'll see later for the other countries.

You have a PM, Mark.

If I had been prevented from withdrawing dollars I would have understood.

Bitcoins are a different matter.  What exactly will be more secure because I am forced to make two entries in the block chain separated by a day instead of one?

If I deposit a lot of Bitcoins at Mybitcoin or instawallet, and try to withdraw them at once am I going to get a similar message?  I doubt it.  What's the difference then?


Well, until I had to contact them I was pseudo-anonymous on Mt.Gox too.  A fact I was delighted about.


I was moving Bitcoins not dollars.

I understand that laws have to be complied with; but seriously what's the point of Bitcoin if I can get better service from the traditional banking system?  There is constant talk about how Bitcoin needs more traders and not speculators, but if I wanted to sell something in the UK using Mt.Gox's merchant API and instantly convert back to GBP, I would be screwed wouldn't I?

If I wanted to get on a plane to Mexico and buy that house that someone on here is selling, I wouldn't be able to move my bitcoins fast enough would I?

I have been keeping a small float in my Mt.Gox account, thinking that I can always move my coins about as I need them, and that it was good to have some on hand for any opportune trades.  Let's say I decide to buy something with my coins today.  Off I go to Mt.Gox and try to send them.... NOOOO, no spending my money today.

I understand that converting to and from cash will be difficult; how could it be otherwise?  Once my funds are in the Bitcoin system, they should be free though.  Removed from artificial restraint.

Perhaps I'm being unfair to Mt.Gox, it may be that the problems are all regulatory, but this really has come as a blow to me.  I have had such high hopes about Bitcoin being a truly international currency. But I see now that the rules and regulations are going to tie Bitcoin in as many knots as the traditional financial system.  In which case, I ask again: what's the point?

This is kind of good news, but the highlighted parts still make my heart sink:


If it isn't completely irrelevant to me whether I keep my bitcoins at Mt.Gox, mybitcoin, instawallet or in my own client, then Bitcoins lose a huge part of their attraction -- namely that I can move them about on demand at my whim, not the whim of my bank/exchange/wallet-provider/government.

The very real legal risks of not complying with government rules regarding currency transfer are very relevant to the brick-and-mortar companies you want to to business with. If you don't like these rules blame the government. If you want to violate the laws that's fine but don't be surprised if people with more tangible assets to have seized don't go along with you.

If you're concerned about having complete control of your coins, I would suggest keeping them in your wallet until it is necessary to do something with them. Any time you forfeit control over your money, you have forfeited control of your money...

"New limits" doesn't mean "lower limits", more like "more adapted limits" (will be online this week). Users will be able to increase their limit as they wish, as the limit will only have one purpose: avoiding some random stranger to empty completely your hard earned bitcoins because they stole your mtgox password.

That makes sense, so the 1000 USD limit reason is needed to allow the commercial intermediary to not fall under MSB regulations requirements, right ? Does it also imply that the funds wired in the US or France actually move to Japan at some point ?


+1, mtgox is doing us all great good by remaining legal

That sounds considerably more positive.

The 1000 USD / day limit does not come from the US MSB thing, but from the Japanese AML regulations.

So you're saying that as soon as I've exchanged dollars I should instantly transfer them out to my own wallet.  Why that's a brilliant idea....

Oh I see, guess it's the closest approximation of the yen amount?

So do the funds get wired back and forth from US/Europe to Japan ? Let me rephrase : what happens when US, France or both decide that bitcoins, and businesses involved in them should be shut down ? (i think the current silk road controversy makes this question more relevant than ever :) )

bitcoin2cash (https://bitcoin2cash.com/) is a BTC/USD exchange geared more towards annonymity and, as far as I can tell, there are no withdrawal limits. Mt Gox has more features and much higher trading volume, so you'll have to decide which exchange fits your priorities best. A lot of forum members like to complain about Mt Gox, but there are plenty of other exchanges that are competing for your business. If none of those exchanges perfectly fit your needs, please feel welcome to start your own exchange (and don't forget the blackjack and hookers (http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0013041/quotes)).

Do I understand this correctly that we will be able to raise (disable?) our btc withdraw limit while staying anonymous?

you can always make more than 1 account you know just like how liberty reserve users get around the $10k limit

True statement. Mt. Gox can't even handle the traffic they have now. I'm still waiting (with a ton of other people) for transactions that were wiped out on the 5th for some strange reason. We really need some friendly competition in the market to help take some of the customer service and transaction volume pressure off of Tux and the rest of the Gox crew.

Hi guys,
Would love to get this question answered as well. :)
I hope it will be possible to do so in the (near) future with only one account.

P.S: first post. ;) Hello Bitcoin community!

I assume that you mean that you are still waiting for a payout.  These must be handled mostly by human beings, and can't be automated to any large extent.  Also, there are increasing reporting requirements for US citizens as either the payout or the total volume of payouts from one vendor increases; thus it becomes increasingly costly for MtGox to payout.  I wouldn't have bothered, myself.  It's getting to the point that most urban dwellers aught to be able to find someone to sell their bitcoin to directly in a local fashion, or at least sell their US$ balance on MtGox to, which can also be done.  I, for one, don't want a bank transfer to withdraw my cash balance anyway; so if the market price isn't going to come back down anytime soon, I'm going to try to find a local bidder to buy my cash balance.

how long does it take after emailing with relevant info to get limits increased? I've been waiting for a day or so now, and I'm growing impatient...

This limit is annoying, had I known about it, I would have not hit it.

Can we trade USD between acounts?

Used to be able to.

Since this thread has a lot of complaints about MtGox, it seems like a good spot to post about their new competitor: http://www.tradehill.com/

You can get a 10% discount on all fees if you sign up using this code: TH-R1168

I also think that withdrawal limits on Bitcoins are totally unnecessary and arbitrary.

I deposited quite a few bitcoins on MtGox some time ago thinking that it would be very easy to withdraw, but apparently it wasn't. Right now my funds are still stuck there, and every attempt to withdraw results in an annoying message.

Via IRC:

<MT`AwAy> MtGox info: changed limits on bitcoin withdraws, you can now contact me (admin@mtgox.com) to have your own limit set for your account. IF YOU DO THAT please include YOUR ACCOUNT USER NAME and the amount you want per day (need caps there or people will not do it)

What's really funny is that I'm finding it hard to withdraw the whole amount I have there.  Every day the exchange rate goes up meaning the withdraw limit goes down.

Seems like 21 million coins is not the asymptotically approached limit in the Bitcoin world.

 ;)