Bitcoin Forum

Dutchman Paul Buitink from debitcoin.org tweets:

"Just heard from a source close to the potential investors that the @twobitidiot document is authentic. 3 companies now bidding on @MtGox"

https://twitter.com/paulbuitink

Says he will update when further info available.

BitPay
Memory Dealers
Dream Host
Mayzus

That's my four guesses. I have a hunch that the latter will win.

Why would you bid on Gox.

The liabilities are at what like $300M?

You are telling me that for $300M you couldn't setup and market a new exchange that would totally dominate the marketplace...

We already know that the Gox backend is basically unusable and would need to be totally re-coded for anyone to even consider using it again.  So they are taking on $300M in debt for what...the "Mt. Gox" brand and customer database...lol

The customer database is not to be sniffed at. There is no great rush of people trying to get into crypto at the moment. Look at the volume on Kraken - good exchange open for a while but...

And a lot of the Gox users are experienced and rich. Butter them up the right way and they will just keep on trading.

MtGox claims 1M users.  Lets pretend they are all 100% legit, fully verified, no throw aways or duplicates.  Lets also pretend 100% of them may use MtGox in the future.  That would be $300 per user which is an asinine valuation.  Cheaper to let MtGox die in bankruptcy and buy the customer list from the trustee.  Still I guess anything is possible.  Some people have deep pockets and a phobia of just holding their coins.

Yeah I'd pay $300M for a list of people that will soon hate me.

With the amount of times gox has been hacked I'm sure there will be pastebin version of the database surfacing shortly; complete with MD5 unseed pass hashes.

* Were rich; now...not so much

PayPal or Google please  :D

Would be great if PayPal or Google accept Bitcoin then they have their own Bitcoin Exchange

It takes a lot to kill a brand. We're still buying gas at Exxon and BP, banking at Chase and HSBC ("the world's laundromat"), etc etc.

There's no doubt they're likely to be bought out, the new owners will gain massive cred in the bitcoin world if they can right this ship.

Yep! Definitely Mayzus.

The following release was on Gox's site, albeit altered, prior to it going dark. The following can still be seen on their FB page as their last entry.

http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2013/12/19/mt-gox-fee-discount/


http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/mt-gox-press-release-bitcoin-750x400.png

seriously there's no way in hell the actual transaction is worth three hundred million Earth dollars

it'll be some sort of mob deal, and it'll make sense at that level, and we'll never know

It could simply change hands for an undisclosed amount equally to or greater than tree-fitty.

I think you are wrong.

With a trusted new CEO, like gmaxwell or antonopoulos MtGox would be far more worth than just 300m.

It would be the easiest way for investors to get hold of a major exchange with high enough volume.

With karpeles as CEO the value is exactly ZERO because noone except a few fools left over would use any service he runs again.


In my opinion it is all about who will be the CEO. If they choose someone noone knows or even worse, continue to use Karpeles, they are just wasting their money.

Goldman Sachs     ;)

cheers,
kev

Or something far less on the pre-condition that MtGox is placed into Chapter 11/ bankruptcy/whatever Japan's restructuring framework allows first.

Seems doubtful that a buyer would offer a full bailout, any corporation as insolvent as MtGox would likely have some kind of partial settlement to creditors (customers in this case) as a takeover precondition.

The impact of Mt Gox bankruptcy is not that cheap.
As oldest and well known Bitcoin Exchange for several years, it will be quite sistemic for Bitcoin Economy. They can't just say: “Uh... Oh... Unfortunately we got hacked. All customer fund lost. Sorry...”

You may take a look at the Bitcoin Price Index, they have lost almost 50% since Mt Gox halt withdrawal.

Some Government may also considering to ban Bitcoin Exchange. They try to protect their people. And many more people will think Bitcoin is a SCAM without even knowing what Bitcoin is.

Personally, I believe saving Mt Gox is better than let them die. It will not come from easily printed money. It comes from hard earned money to bail out this dying company.

Mt Gox will be better with a brand new logo, CEO, management, products and investor. Imagine a large company like Google or PayPal buy this company and then integrate with their current payment system. It's better than let them die and create chaos in Bitcoin Economy.

Note: Bitcoin Exchange = Bitcoin Exchange Company (e.g: Bitstamp, BTC-e, BTC China, Kraken)

think about whatsapp, $300M is really nothing...

Forgive me,
I had to smile at that one

cheers,
kev

Government can't ban Bitcoin. I know it.

But they can ban Bitcoin Company. I mean Bitcoin Company like Mt Gox, Bitstamp, BTC China, etc.

I strongly agree


Yes, I imagine some big company will buy it and integrate with their current payment system. Just make sure they had everything new. New brand, CEO, Management, Technology, Products, etc. and eventually new customer will come.

Any big company that see Bitcoin's future prospect certainly will buy. Mt Gox are always on top 3 exchange so far. I will even buy this company if they file an IPO.

You are mean.

You guys are all assuming a purchaser will necessarily make all customers whole. That doesn't look realistic. The best Gox can hope for is to get bids/proposals, and go with the best they are offered.

Karpeles doesn't have a choice - he is a gaping liability to Gox and will get f*cked in any transaction. it won't be milk and honey for customers either. Maybe a quarter cup of milk, but certainly no honey ...

I agree. But I am more conservative, thinking there are only less than 30 people in the world who has the reputation to buy MtGox and keep it running.

My speculation: This personage should bid with $1, Mark is too greedy to agree, the deadlock goes on for a month, and this personage decide the brand's reputation is further damaged beyond redemption and give up bidding, Mark capitulate and agree to sell for $1, but it's too late, then he files bankruptcy.

Karpeles has no choice, there will be too much pressure on him from people having serious funds in Gox. They will soon see as well that this is a reasonable solution to possibly get their funds out.
Whatever business Karpeles touches from this day, will turn to dirt. He adds negative value to a business.

Maybe they will have to put some money in to get this parasite out once and for all, he doesn't deserve, but sometimes you have to dance with the devil to get to something better.

At the same time, there are many early BTC adopters which have immense amounts of bitcoins they were honorable enough to keep instead of flooding the market and crash the price.

They would love to invest their BTC in a business that would on top restore BTC's reputation and give their remaining coins more value in the process i would guess. Also with a very good chance of profiting from it in the next 5 years unless something more sinister happens in the BTC world.

They will also see very quickly that this can be done only with a new fully trusted CEO by the community which will be given full control of how the exchange runs without strings attached.
I named two candidates which would be perfect in my opinion, however i have no clue if they are even interested.

There are certainly more issues as in how feasible this is in terms of legal issues. I am no lawyer, and i do not have all the data related to gox.

This is just my take on what i would consider perfect both for the new investors and those having funds stuck in the exchange.

Personally i have nothing in MtGox and drew out all i had long ago when they started delaying withdrawals, but i won't hide that it is in my interest for BTC to thrive as i am holding a medium sized amount of BTC as well as me considering BTC a great way to escape the quantitative easing (money printing) of the FED and the likes.

Adding to the above i said. The new investors could be those having funds stuck in Gox.

They would have to get in contact with infamous Karpeles and get him to sign a contract to pass the ownership to those that have funds stuck on gox in the appropriate percentage relative to their funds in there.

Then they would have to vote on a new CEO, whoever they think would be viewed as the most trustworthy by the community as well as being willing to do the job.

In the long run, having a share in a big exchange that is run by a trusted member of the community they are very likely to even draw out profits of this currently miserable situation.

As i said, i am no lawyer, and my words should be taken with a pint of salt. I am just trying to add my 2 cents and state my view so some might potentially benefit of this.

edit: The exchange when opening up again, could trade shares on top of just BTC, so those who do not want to keep their share, could directly trade it for BTC and get out of it.

That could be huge - Exchange driven and owned by the community.
I think many of us would be glad to pay for such shares, even it that would be worth only 0.001 % or so.
I hope this is possible, even considering all the obstacles and problems we should be able to vote for and choose new management, CEO etc.
We should put some pressure on MK to make this happen...

It's totally wrong that another company could get ahold of Gox and we would see it restart  :-\

Why? With the right people it could turn everything... Furthermore it could be a once-in-a-lifetime business-opportunity for a big company (eg. bank, PSP) to step in...

Because they have caused enough damage to the bitcoin community. Their name just can't be somehow 'clean' again after a takeover by another party.

I think with good rebranding (gox.com) and the right team they could turn the clock.

And NOT fix things will damage the bitcoin community much more. Do you think people will invest/use Bitcoins in the nearby future if they said "too bad, bye bye" ?

You don't need to quote me if you're the first to reply.

You still haven't explained why new potential investors would take over gox..instead of starting a new initiative under a new name.
Right..that's why the current exchange rates are already at the level before gox went down?

Uhm, what about the 550.000(?) verified accounts? That's worth something. Apart from the numbers it costs a shitload of time to check all the data and paperwork.

And I think how bad or worse Empty Gox was, they were still in the top 3 of the world.

Because they would get access to the servers and software running this exchange plus the customers and volume IF and only IF a new trusted CEO would lead it. Many old customers which left when the withdrawal delays appeared would return possibly if they trusted the new CEO.

If they go by your option, they would be just one out of many new exchanges out there, with little chance of ever getting to the volumes MtGox had.

MtGox is infamous now, mainly because Karpeles runs it and because of the lost funds. Both of those issues however would be fixed the way i proposed it.
So if those issues were to be fixed, then who would NOT want to hold a share of an exchange with high volumes and a bright future?


You think you can just start a new exchange and get all the volume? You won't, because you need volume in order to get new customers which you will never have as there are already other exchanges which offer that like bitstamp and btc-e.

With MtGox it is a completely other scenario. With the right steps, it's old volume can return and even surpass it when withdrawals work without delays.

Right now this seems about the only hope I can find as a Goxxxed customer.




 :'( cant believe I just right clicked and added Goxxxed to my browsers dictionary FML  :'(

You can't buy a company without the liabilities. Mtgox has to declare bankruptcy, negotiate with the creditors and then get buyed by someone to get rid off the debt or a large portion of it.

At the moment it looks like a bailout buy.

They would only have to declare bankruptcy if they are bankrupt. I'm still searching away for solid evidence this is the case if you have any help the whole community out and post it. Granted there is a metricshitton of circumstantial evidence saying so  :'( Still would be nice to know for sure.

Some IRC Chatter:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/t1/1780873_288167174671728_1456145030_n.jpg

If someone buys Mt.Gox and decides to make good on debts, assuming the rumours are true and they lost 750kBTC, how exactly are they going to get people their BTCs?
People say it's $400mil, try buying 750kBTC from somewhere without effecting the price!  It would surely rise greatly, maybe even to $1000 making increasing their $ debt towards $750mil!

I guess they would have to offer cash for BTC at the market rate or a % of that rate.

Best-case scenario the new acquirer offers between 100 to 200 $ per BTC. But I fear I'm dreaming here.

Volume is very high right now on all exchanges, someone could be already trying to grab enough coins. There are some companies out there who have the kind of money and are willing to invest in the future of bitcoin. High risk but also high reward.

Mayzus would make sense as the twobitidiot mentioned big plans regarding Europe.

Come on get real. Do you know how many huge brands shit all over their customer base day in, day out, but people still use them, return to them, and recommend them.

They'd be buying the brand; and the media attention, the existing customer base, the reputation as one of the oldest and largest Bitcoin exchanges. Hell, the media seem to be even getting confused between Gox and Bitcoin itself. In a billion dollar industry (with huge potential for growth) $300M isn't that much money to some people. Being under new management would legitimise it; if Mark leaves the picture.

I'm not saying anyone will necessarily get their money or BTC back; just that an acquisition isn't that unrealistic despite Gox's current reputation and debt.

Facebook payed $19 billion for whatsapp users that now migrates to Telegram for better integrity  :)

Also WhatsApp annual revenues are lower than Gox.

http://www.quora.com/WhatsApp-Messenger/How-much-revenue-is-WhatsApp-generating

the problem with all the above proposals is that we do not know all the liabilities of MtGox.

What if there are hidden liabilities that would make MtGox extremely toxic to own?


Otherwise it is a simple 2 steps process

step 1 ) replace Karpeles with new CEO/s which is/are trusted by the community

step 2) get everyone who has funds stuck in MtGox to agree on taking a share of the company he will be able to trade on MtGox along with BTC when it opens up again. Those shareholders are the new owners. AGAIN __only after checking if there are other liabilities hidden behind MtGox we do not know of__


I wish it was THAT simple. However, if Karpeles did something more sinister, like create fake BTC and fake USD out of thin air by entering numbers in the MtGox server database, then this is getting too complex for me, and it will require some brainiac to unwind this and get to the most righteous solution in who gets how many shares.

Unfortunately i fear that he has done exactly this for two reasons.

Reason number one being the price of BTC has fallen down to 91.5 USD at it's low. This however makes no sense at all. Not even the stupidest of all idiots would have sold his BTC for 91.5 USD when other exchanges had it at 500-650.
I strongly believe he created fake BTC and took the price down to 91.5 USD in order to get more real BTC from people trying to buy this fake BTC at low prices in an attempt to profit from the sharp up and down, multiplying it and then reselling it to others attempting the same. A ponzi which just bursted when gox closed shop.


Reason number two is this strange comment


how can bitcoin he owns and which is on the exchange not be accessible to him? How can it be temporarily unavailable? He should have the private keys to those bitcoins if it was real BTC.

This to me means that the BTC is NOT real, but fake. Just numbers in the MtGox database. I already wrote a full article about this earlier.



I hope strongly that i am completely off and it really is just an easy 2 steps process to restore gox and give those with funds stuck something in return they can hope on profiting of in the future. But PLEASE make sure you examined MtGox from all sides before deciding to become owners of this potentially HIGHLY toxic business which might lead you into bankruptcy....

But it can't really be much worse than what is being said already: that they have almost zero of all funds held by customers!  :D

So it's a start-from-scratch scenario.

Those who want in for the long - terms have shares equivalent to their holdings. Effectively they get nothing back now.

Those who want out take an almighty haircut - I'm thinking somewhere between grade 2-4 with the clippers. It's the only way to split the remaining funds up evenly.

I think an external buyout is a pipe dream, gox has its own legal issue before this fiasco

BTC China show us how a platform can 'decline' (or lose its spot) relatively quickly in this market.

It CAN be much worse. liabilities are not just what they owe to the customers. Plus, how do you know if he did not lie about how many customers are out there he owes how many USD/BTC to?

What if he just created a few billions fake BTC and passed them onto him as the owner. His personal bitcoins stored on MtGox. What if he sold those in return for real USD? What if he also created fake USD and sold those for real BTC? It gets so mind boggling i cannot even think it out.

You have to be VERY careful with this rat. This is not someone who was out just for the money, but a paid BTC assassin by someone high up....

The truth could be way way more complex than we like it...

No I still don't think it can be much worse than what is being said: everything that the books say the customers have in their accounts is owed without any funds to pay. This is the rock bottom scenario, and it makes the most sense looking at what is going on.

It is likely that Karpeles has known about this for a long time but has been paralyzed by a mix of stupidity, laziness and fear. I think it will come to light that he faked BTC balances for his accountants.

Whether or not he embezzled funds also remains to be seen.

Of course it is possible that the company also owes massive, hitherto undiscovered debts - to Starbucks for example. But the scenario we are being presented with today already takes into account your idea of creating BTC balances out of thin air. That is what is being insinuated already.

I am no expert in this just have a natural tendency to be paranoid.... So let me ask you this question. How do you find out ALL the liabilities a company has if the company itself has tampered with the books?

Is there a source where you can look up all liabilities a company has that is __100%__ accurate and would cover you legally under any circumstances?

To make myself clear. I do not think Karpeles only created BTC out of thin air for the _supposed_ BTC he lost to _supposed_ scammers.

I believe he created WAY WAY more goxBTC out of thin air than most would dare to think. Pushing the price that low, some of the users now might own incredible amount of fake goxBTC far above the 750k he mentions. Same goes for the USD part.

In such a case, you cannot simply trust their books. But who can you trust then? Taking the company just to find out you owe 1 billion BTC later and who knows how much USD will NOT be fun...

Well I suppose it could be that there was no leak of coins - they had all been withdrawn correctly - and that you are right in the sense that he created fake BTC over and above the number of coins in existence (and not only that he had an IOU for a real BTC on his books when that real BTC had been stolen).

That - the idea that in the end in fact he was running a true BTC ponzi - would be a huge relief to those who rue the fact that 6% of the BTC in circulation have become black market coins.

Yeah, Silk Road prove that. They get busted, Bitcoin seized. People still using Silk Road 2. Even Silk Road 2 get hacked, I believe people will continue to use Silk Road 3.

Paul Buitink seeds more rumors: Additional info: the 3 companies bidding on Gox are well-known in the #bitcoin industry. Hope the community can solve the Gox problem asap.

https://twitter.com/paulbuitink/status/438681699753271296

would be nice to hear from another source also

I agree - just saying "three big companies" was exciting yesterday - but its yesterday's news! Give us something more now.

EDIT: oh yeah, and the other source!  ;D

I agree in principle but not in principal :)

They will do it with OPM or a stock offering so they'll get it for free.

Here's how the negotiations are going to go:

"We'll give you nothing and take on the debt"
Mark says "But I need money to feed my cat!"
"OK, we'll give you nothing plus a million bucks to skip town"
Mark says "But I gained 30 kilos!"
"OK we'll give you nothing plus 2 million bucks to skip town"
DEAL!

Then they go to GOX.COM, spin off Tibane into oblivion, and take the customer list, so they don't have to hold the $367 million in the red balance sheet, and say "Sorry, any issues with Mt. Gox should be brought up with the old ownership... we had nothing to do with that"...

...and one last time, everyone gets GOXXXED for old time's sake.

This is why the involuntary bankruptcy proceeding is needed.