Bitcoin Forum

They should stop trading and try to work out the queue.

We have no evidence at all that this is the case. There is ZERO evidence that some guy who looked nervous in a video or mtgox staff or friends of mtgox staff is getting their withdraws and their money out while everyone else is left hanging.

That this seems pretty obvious to everyone who follows the markets closely is another story, and we can all do our own thinking. But there is, as said, zero evidence, it's just a theory. We can all calculate how likely we think it is that this theory is true, of course. We are still free to do some things in the "free" western world (just don't say anything critical of the government or say bad things like "what is false-flag terror, what was operation northwoods, etc").

Bitstamp is at 102.6$ now so going up. Up 3.3% for the day.

There is a certain "drag effect" that makes it so that the bank run on Gox brings also Stamp price up.
On as to how much of that drag is due to end of holidays + new bubble starting rather than due to suckers that think "Gox price is up, buy buy buy on Stamp that's cheaper" - well that topic is likely going to be a hot debate in the speculation forum.

I think, however, the big jump in price is due to very bullish signs for Bitcoin. Recent attention it got from Washington made some hedge fund managers pay more close attention, some even recommending their customers including Bitcoin in their portofolio and thing is MtGox is still the go to exchange for big players, not the Slovenia Eastern Europe based Bitstamp.

Why Mt.Gox is a bottleneck, just like every other exchange

Because Euro-SEPA transfers are actually credit tranfers and can be re-called up to 10 business days, Mt.Gox is forced to delay EUR deposits for 10 business days as well. This is not Mt.Gox's fault, but the way SEPA works. SEPA recalls have cost Mt.Gox a lot of money from prematurely crediting SEPA transfers.

According to Mt.Gox their only European bank in Poland has imposed daily withdrawal limits. Your EUR withdrawals enter a queue and can take 3-8 weeks to process. I believe this. European banks are required by law to prevent money laundering and financing of terrorism. The amount of cash Mt.Gox is withdrawing is suspicious. For example, corporate businesses such as T-Mobile would never need to withdraw so much cash back to their individual customers. Mass withdrawals are a strange and suspicious phenomenon in the banking world. The Mt.Gox outgoing cashflow is so suspicious that we should be lucky that it is even possible to get EUR out of Mt.Gox.

Why doesn't Mt.Gox simply open up multiple European bank accounts? Because most banks do not accept "Bitcoin businesses" at all. Banks have the legal right to deny business they do not understand.

"Oh, but surely, Bitstamp is the solution!" BULLSHIT. Once Bitstamp reaches high levels of outgoing withdrawals then Bitstamp's bank accounts will also be shut down, just like Mt.Gox's. Bitstamp operates within the European Union and must therefore comply with the same laws to prevent money laundering and financing of terrorism. Soon Bitstamp will have to deal with daily withdrawal limits from their bank. Bitstamp will face the exact same problems as Mt.Gox. There are no magical pills to solve real world problems.

Besides, even though BitServiceX maintains a Trusted account at Mt.Gox, we can only withdraw 10K EUR per day and 100K EUR per month, severely limiting cash flow back into BitServiceX.

Problem: exchanges with European bank accounts can never service mass withdrawals. At some point all bank accounts handling Bitcoin withdrawals will either be shutdown or severely restricted to prevent money laundering and financing of terrorism. The same thing happened to Germany's Bitcoin-24.
Solution: currently, there is no solution but to spread your assets over as many different exchanges as possible.

Why then not buy BTC at bitstamp for example, where price is lower? The difference between Gox and others is still rising.

Oh great idea! I wonder why nobody else had this idea
/sarcasm off  ::)

It doesn't matter if you sell your Bitcoins on MtGox for 100, 1000 or one gazillion USD per BTC - as long as there's no way to withdraw your funds.

Bullish signs, so investors buying BTC. Ok. Why then not buy BTC at bitstamp for example, where price is lower? The difference between Gox and others is still rising.

Did anybody here have his mtgox withdrawal limits changed to 0 btc and $0 per 24hours!!!?!?! My account is fully verified it used to be $1,000 or 100 btc just a few days ago.

I have thousands worth of btc and dollars in my account and was about to withdraw btc just now when now my limits are showing 0, as in i can withdraw NOTHING!! What is going on here?

    BTC : You can still withdraw up to 100.00000000 BTC provided you have enough on your account (your limit is 100.00000000 BTC per 24 hours )
    USD : You can still withdraw up to $10,000.00000 provided you have enough on your account (your limit is $10,000.00000 per 24 hours and $50,000.00000 per 30 days)

Hhahah trustworthy like Gox?  Well if you are looking at doing significant volume, one would traditionally do an off exchange transaction because even Gox's volume is ridiculously low for a currency market.  Oh and one other thing, if you want to sell, when can you expect to see your funds?  Hmm ya i'll just trust a shady Bitcoin exchange that tells me it will take 3 months to withdraw my cash.  

Answer the question: why not buy BTC at bitstamp?

To get back to your question though, MtGox receives most of the media attention and it's the go to place for most people, especially investors who want a safe bet in a very shaky and shady Bitcoin environment. Gox may be sluggish, cumbersome' n such but it is safe you can't argue with that and they've made steps to get regulated.

Calling Gox safe... I just can't imagine you saying that with a straight face.  Hm lying to your customers for over 3 months, not letting them withdraw USD, not rolling out Litecoin, not registering with FinCEN until your funds get seized, getting sued by Coinlab for $75 MM for completely disregarding their agreement (which they will lose)... I can continue if you'd like.  I'd just prefer that you not insult everyone's intelligence by calling Mt.Gox a "safe exchange."

You mean Coinlab?  No, Gox does not have money to fight this.  And they are absolutely in breach of contract.  They will lose the court case, it is just a matter of determining how much they will settle for, which even at 10% of the suit amount ($7.5 MM) would be more than Gox has made in revenue the last 2 years combined. 

What I've found is that many people don't read the service discussion forum.  I want to make sure everyone knows about the Gox problem and then can decide how he/she deals with it.  Here is a funny example of someone who posted on the other threads:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=274363.0

I am taking everything I have from Bitstamp also. It won't be long that the same kind of bank and government screws are applied to them next.

It's long overdue to disperse to as many exchanges as possible, as far from the US, Thailand and other states of big brotherhood as possible.

Valid Point...

Anybody who pays any attention to the forums should know whats going on with gox its all ove rthe place.

Right, was Coinlab. I wouldn't worry about them winning any lawsuit against MtGox. Coinbase was the one who got big round of funding recently. Coinlab is insignificant small player by comparison.

They had depended to 100% on the Gox orderbook. It was only a Gox-Proxy. But now they have stopped there service. They do on their side only advertisement now. I can not see any more business activity there: http://coinlab.com/

Their last activity was to file a Breach-Of-Contract suit against Mt. Gox.

That reminds me of SCO against Linux, SCO had no business purpose too, except lawsuits. There will be always idiots who invest in something like that.

No, Gox explicitly violated the contract they had with Coinlab. 

Let the courts decide.

B. directly servicing customers in the United States and Canada in violation of the agreement’s exclusivity provisions;

C.failing to cooperate in facilitating the timely and seamless transfer of CoinLab customers to CoinLab;

D.failing to provide the necessary technology, software, and know-how to CoinLab and refusing to establish promised network connections;

E.failing to deliver all passwords, Yubikeys, administrative logins and other required security information;

F.failing to make available to CoinLab on-demand and read-only access to Mt.Gox’s databases and other related records and data pertaining to accounts for customers in the United States and Canada;

G.failing to timely comply with the Agreement’s revenue share requirements;

H.failing to timely deposit Liquidity Funds in the manner instructed by CoinLab;and

I.failing to timely reconcile revenue and customer trade imbalances.

49.As a result of Defendants’ breaches, Plaintiff has suffered actual damages in an amount equal to or exceeding $75,000,000

http://www.scribd.com/doc/139160091/Coinlab-v-Mt-Gox

Yes, the contract provides that Gox is donated to CoinLab. It's a joke! Most conditions are unsatisfiable. The contract is worth nothing. Ignore it is still the best thing you can do with it. It is simply fraud. Gox has perhaps also committed to buy a couple of old washing machines from CoinLab?

Gox has simply been deceived by CoinLab. I do not know how the signature came on the contract. The contract unilaterally damnify Gox. The agreement is contra bonos mores.

It didn't.  And they openly violated the agreement.  They fully owe $75 MM, and they have no chance in court.

To be fair, part of the reason that the Gox/Bitstamp spread got up to 20% is because when Gox took off to 120, there was a big sell wall at 99.99 on Bitstamp...it was about 2000 BTC and took over an hour to get eaten through.  Then Bitsamp moved up from there and current % is about 13.7.  That is still high but not 20%.

Oh the courts will, and I can guarantee it will most definitely be in CoinLab's favor. My main job is doing due diligence on large acquisitions, which usually has me reading hundreds of pages of legal contracts and documentation.  It is quite evident Gox completely ignored the agreement.

"What tipped us into filing was our complete inability to get Mt. Gox to deliver on the few simple things left that were needed for customers to move over en-masse;"

IV. COUNT I- BREACH OF CONTRACT

B. directly servicing customers in the United States and Canada in violation of the agreement’s exclusivity provisions;

C.failing to cooperate in facilitating the timely and seamless transfer of CoinLab customers to CoinLab;

D.failing to provide the necessary technology, software, and know-how to CoinLab and refusing to establish promised network connections;

E.failing to deliver all passwords, Yubikeys, administrative logins and other required security information;

F.failing to make available to CoinLab on-demand and read-only access to Mt.Gox’s databases and other related records and data pertaining to accounts for customers in the United States and Canada;

G.failing to timely comply with the Agreement’s revenue share requirements;

H.failing to timely deposit Liquidity Funds in the manner instructed by CoinLab;and

I.failing to timely reconcile revenue and customer trade imbalances.

49.As a result of Defendants’ breaches, Plaintiff has suffered actual damages in an amount equal to or exceeding $75,000,000

http://www.scribd.com/doc/139160091/Coinlab-v-Mt-Gox