Bitcoin Forum

Mt. Gox Resigns From Bitcoin Foundation

By Robin Sidel

Feb. 23, 2014 10:08 p.m. ET

Mark Karpeles, chief executive of Mt. Gox, the embattled Toyko-based bitcoin exchange, resigned on Sunday from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The move comes as amid a string of longstanding technical issues that began last summer when Mt. Gox halted customer withdrawals in U.S. dollars. The problems became more severe earlier this month when Mt. Gox halted all customer withdrawals, saying that a bug in the bitcoin software allowed some users to alter transactions.

The problems prompted CoinDesk to remove Mt. Gox from its bitcoin pricing index earlier this month.

The exchange told customers last week that it was still working on "reinitiating" bitcoin withdrawals.

Mt. Gox is one of several industry representatives on the board of the foundation, which is essentially a trade organization that advocates for the virtual currency. Charles Shrem, another board member, stepped down in January after being charged with money laundering in connection with his bitcoin company.

A phone call to Mt. Gox's office in Tokyo rang unanswered.

http://pastebin.com/4ZFv0MXb
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303426304579401883794330454

I can't say i'm bothered by this news.

I cant really see Mark will survive pass 2014.... truth to be told, ppl get killed for far less reasons than this.

Come on crash!  Momma needs $100 bitcoins!

Bitstamp sell order at $579.34     for 9109 BTC   Total: $5,277,325.37

don't know about $100 but the have gone from $349 to about $172 and are in the process of going down

http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/mtgox/btcusd

Yikes. Looks like the writing really is on the wall for MtGox.

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=462

And what that has to do with Karpeles resigning from Bitcoin Foundation  :P
If you want to spread FUD do it properly and start a new thread  :P :P

That should free up some his time to work on more important issues.  ::)

I reported this on The Daily Crypto as well.

http://thedailycrypto.com/post/mt-gox-ceo-resigns/

Or anyone that bets on news.

What I find very interesting is that today there was enormous volume on Darkcoin trading at both c-cex and poloniex. Price was gyrating like crazy and everyone was
wondering wtf was going on and who was this mystery buyer.

If he really wants to sell 10k btc, he wouldnt put up a wall.... Idiot.

This shows its not about holding 10k btc is a bad idea or not...... Stupid investors will sell their coins based on your exact thoughts.

Is it over now?

What does the bitcoin foundation do exactly? So far I've only heard bad press about them.

This will be incredibly positive for bitcoin in the long run, however in the short term I can see it hurting. At least it looks like I will be buying some cheap coins.

Two Foundation members in as many months to go down in a controversial ball of flames. For a Foundation that's meant to be the honorable face of bitcoin they are not doing a great job..

They dont do crap.... dont be deceived by their name. They're a private organization that should not represent us, bitcoin community. To me many of them are just plain scammers.... like " Hero Member" on this forum.

They are here for the community dawn't ya naw?

You've been deceived. No1 voted for them. Its the name that made you think its meant for the face of bitcoin.

Karpeles is goneski and Vessenes is still chairmen of the board.  That match didn't last long.  To add insult to injury, Mark ponied up like $100k or something and I'd be surprised if Vess contributed anything.

Mark should have just handed over all of the customer data and took what he could get from the Coinlab deal.  The historic data is almost certain to be lost (to the US Federales) anyway unless Mark destroys it, but that would almost certainly have significant negative ramifications for him personally.  I find it doubtful that he would do that to say the least.

People talking about two people resigning, which is the other one than Mark Karpeles?

Our monkey boy, Charlie..... for involving with money laundering for drug dealers.

Someone that puts up a wall like that doesn't intend on selling it all.

We have seen this so many times.

But but.... the noobs havent seen it.... and they're so sure..... bitcoin is doomed!

Lets hope it is!  ;D

Let the weak hands sell.

its good this mtgox hurting Bitcoin more than any other thing

Good news but watch GoxCoin price down to usd$0.01

Are you kidding.  The Feds already have that entire database.

Smells like MtGox

I hope so, I`ll buy a million at that price - even if I have a 90% chance of losing it all.

As for a sell wall being placed there by insiders ... you guys need to know that regular traders do that in order to push the price down so they can buy cheaper coins. And when they want the price to increase they please a big buy wall (or a string of smaller ones). The wall makes it so you have to outbid them in order to get your order processed, otherwise it will be stuck in line behind theirs for a long time. It also has the psychological effect of making scared people buy or sell because they think everyone else is buying/selling (when really it`s a market manipulation that goes back and forth and you can just wait for the swing in the opposite direction).

I don't know about anyone else but I'm gonna celebrate when Gox false off of the Internet.

They caused enough trouble, be great for another more competent exchange with better software take over, such as Kraken.

The thread on the foundation's board was interesting:

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/740-petition-to-remove-mark-karpeles-from-the-bitcoin-foundation-board/

I would have loved to have been a fly on the virtual wall for some of their internal discussions over this, as I don't think it very likely that the other board members would have remained totally silent until Karpeles out of nowhere would just offer his resignation.

Do they now have a problem with quorum? A poster there mentioned that they had to add two board spots to have a chance at quorum, and that losing Karpeles would cause problems there again.

FINALLY!!!!! Someone else who see's it.
friend, I have been searching for you for a long time

ooo you joined in 2012.
so you know the truth about most of these scum bags yeah :) ??
You know how some of them got fancy cars =)

Its funny cause I pretty much log everything, including forums. I will post up the hole bitcoin history, with everyones quotes.. for the SEC or anyone searching on google to see :) I just need a spare 15 weeks to get it all in order. I'm not so good at recording data I save :(

 Hopefully this will not happen again in the future it imperil the cryptocurrency industry we can now move forward and learn on this
hopefully bitcoin's value will zoomed to $1000 again

In the long run this is definitely a positive. Anyone in the community for a few months knows that MtGox has been the weakest link in the frontline of big bitcoin businesses for a long time.

The issue is how the general public and media will react in the short term.

You know what, given the whole air of impropriety and malfeasance people continued, and still today, continue to invest in Mt. Gox btc, so I no longer wish them gone, I now see that people like them are necessary evils for the market to operate in a way that values excellence and integrity. 

"Mt Gox" type businesses will always exist in the cryptocurrency industry.

After reading the first page of that my neck got tired of shaking back and forth. 

I could not believe that they confused 'membership revocation' with 'director removal'.   Just because you remove someone from the board doesn't mean that you remove them as a member of the community.   Clearly, if you remove them from the community they are automatically removed from the board if membership is required to be a board member.

Well expect some short term dips again cause of this... and the some more dips days weeks or months from now when something gox related comes out and affectst he price again.

Should be good for bitcoin in the long run though,  can't be having ameature companies like this constantly causing problems.  And with all do respect if you're the CEO then you should take the fall for it.

it should be over, but there are still so many questions to be answered .! but its really unrealistic for me to hear any good news from mt-gox .so the chapter is closed for me.

As I understand the bitcoinfoundation blog post it's not Mark Karpeles who resigned but his Company Mt.Gox.

He is on the board as individual and Mt.Gox has a industry membership. The blog post refers only to the industry membership of the company.

Mister Latte is still on the board.

MtGOX just removed all their posts from Twitter:
http://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-twitter-posts-removed/

I am being more and more inclined that he was forced to resign, rather than doing it willingly.

This was expected, it was time. Unanswered? Is he trying to run for it? I'm not sure how he could escape everything now.
Even if he was, this is a good thing. He needed to leave his position. Even many random members from here could have done his job in the foundation, much better than he did.

this is not enough, he has to pay much more

I rekon he is the type to start up another exchange to be honest. I cant imagine him just sitting on his hands.. when he knows he can do the same thing again with a differant domain. Its the same with all those pieces of crap.

If he's still alive by this time next year

Eric Burdon - The Animals - We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxNEiZhpinY&noredirect=1

TL;DNR - I got the same email update from The Bitcoin Foundation about this news too.  Unfortunately Karpeles did not resign from Mt.Gox, he only resigned from the position as one of the Board of Directors at TBF.

Resigning from Gox would just be too easy ;)

Which I why, I for one, wouldn't mind some Government regulation to prevent these types of fiasco happening. Corporations always end up being too greedy, we need regulations or some type of entity to prevent this from happening.

I really think so too,
bitcoins above $1000 should be really possible !!!
maybe even >$2000  ;D ;D ;D ;D

I think him putting his name to a new Exchange wouldn't exactly be a wise idea.

Some dude (nice 1 btw) posted this from a recent MtGox IRC (this might be complete FUD!!)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=484494.0

Interesting though

He ain't resigned cuz there's good news coming!

next it will be their facebook, standard action before run off

kind of, but he is native cause he won't get away from it, some one will chase him and hunt him down

bring him to justice and punishment

depends on who are you stealing from, if you steal $$$ from Yakuza Mob or some one well connected to Yakuza Mob, then anything
bloody can happen even death could be a wish

Good to see him go.  I've been out of Gox a long time now (as soon as they started hinting at trouble), but I do feel sympathetic for the people who still have funds there.  Cheap coins sure, but at a risk of obtaining nothing is a bit too much for me.

But for as much headache as the company's caused, I do hope to see it go away soon. 

So much for Gox's bump.  Back to the $150s as of early am, EST.

see how this pans out, though he is staying CEO of Gox so if he starts focusing on the exchange this should be good news right?

Baby steps to ridding the Bitcoin community of the 1000 lb Gorilla in the room.

Next Gox and Karpales have to finally close its doors.

This can only be good news overall.

WOW! Just saw in real-time on bitcoinwisdom (Bitstamp chart) someone sell 4k coins on a market  order in less than 30 seconds.  Price went from 580 to 514USD as all the buy orders got filled.  Crazy to watch!!!  

Makes me want to BUY, but then I forget I'm mining at about $110/BTC in electricity use  8)

i would not bet 1 satoshi that he would stay alive for long

I think this week will be the week from hell for Gox, either they'll show major signs of a comeback or I believe we will see the $0 GOXBTC by Friday.

Well from the little i have read and understood, this guy is a major liability on the Bitcoin scene.

This means its time to clean up.

PREDICTION: $200-$250 btc across all exchanges by Friday?  

Disclaimer: I have been in a SHORT position for about a week, I would really like to see sub $300 BTC soon.

First he resigns his position at the Bitcoin Foundation, next he deletes twitter posts, then Bitstamp takes a 9000 coin - 5 million dollar nosedive.  ::)

http://feb.imghost.us/HvyV.png

I think the "bitcoin foundation" should resign.

also deleted all their tweets https://twitter.com/MtGox

that is bizarro, 

Seems like Mark has been dumping a lot on the other exchanges lately, he did it on his own exchange first.

He doesnt have to dump anything. When you stop allowing withdrawal, the trading can be fake because noone can confirm a sell or a buy.

Mean while, Mark was trading on other real exchanges. He can use MtGox to influence other market.

Wonder if they deleted tweets at the advice of legal counsel.  I'm not sure what was there but you don't want to go around making any type of statement that can be construed as misleading.

this is not enough, he should quit the job. i don't want to hear his name again next to bitcoin or any coin.

I think he would be a great candidate to represent ButtCoin

MTGOX is gone ?

He can't exactly quit gox in the middle of this mess.


No, not yet. Read the thread. He's resigned from the Bitcoin Foundation.

Cheers, me too!!!

I respect him a little more for resigning since the foundation was not going to get rid of him even though the petition was signed and the community made it clear we wanted him gone but Mark resigned on is own which is at least a good thing.

The dump on Bitstamp nicely coincides with this event.

So what are you trying to say?

Ain't nothin wrong!!! Just ask one of the many GOX lovers on here who still fail to comprehend the fact that GOX is dead and bloated. Or ask the poster who created a thread asking the Bitcoin Foundation to apologize to Mark Karpeles (that was of course a few weeks ago before things got worse, now that poster is silent).

people here are incredible

everyone wanted him to resign and when he does, BTC price tanks?!  ??? >:(

This was a necessary evil.  It sucks in the short term, but hopefully this will lead to either his dismissal as Gox CEO or Gox shutting it's doors for good.  2 steps back to take one step forward.

He may have resigned from the foundation but the MtGox website is still showing its Bitcoin Foundation gold member status. Does his resignation even mean anything at this point? All the statements from Gox during this whole fiasco came from the company not him personally. While that Foundation gold member logo is up on the site we still have the impression that the Foundation is supporting MtGox. He is still CEO of MtGox as far as I know. So in effect he can still use the Foundation connection to bolster support for MtGox with the added benefit of no actual responsibilities as a member if there even were any.