Bitcoin Forum

Many on here think that only the people who currently have money or bitcoin with gox will be directly affected by a gox bankruptcy.  That may not be the case.  According to Jesse Powell, the CEO of Kraken, 800,000 bitcoin were stolen in June 2011.  Instead of informing the public, gox decided to essentially run a ponzi scheme from that date forward through which it attempted to reach solvency by generating fees through transactions and possible arbitrage. 

The bankruptcy trustee could determine that everything that occurred since that June 2011 date should be unwound, and that anyone who withdrew money or bitcoin from that will need to return those net profits to bankruptcy estate. 

Don't believe me?  Do you think the people who were smart enough, or lucky enough, to pull money out of their Bernie Madoff accounts got to keep those profits?  No, the bankruptcy trustee sued every single one of those people and required them to put back into the bankruptcy estate all of their net profits that they made.  And it meant nothing that they were completely unaware of the fraud.   

So if you are one of those people who had money or bitcoin on gox and made a profit on the transaction, which is now sitting in your wallet or your bank account, don't be too sure you want gox to die. 

Nobody tells Bitcoin what to do.

Agreed.  ;D

Yes, this is possible. The law allows going back as far as 3 years!

How about we revisit this thread once we actually know

• the scale of the loss at MtGox
• whether anyone is going to prosecute
• if that prosecution is even going to consider bitcoin funds

because right now I think it is a stretch that any government is going to be interested in fighting for someone's bitcoins, leaving this to private litigation.

rewind ??? never going to happen!

no doubt.  unless satoshi decides to break open his 1.2mm bitcoin rainy day fund (and if ever there was a time to do it...)

Reversing bitcoin transactions? How would you go about that? Ask nicely? Print full size news papers ads?

The whole world economy is a f-n ponzi scheme,
but it works as long as most people don't think it is a ponzi scheme.

 

My guess is gox has the names, addresses of those who had accounts there.  The Madoff bankruptcy trustee didn't run newspapers ads or ask nicely, he filed lawsuits against every person who took out more than he put in. 

If you put in $100,000, and took out $500,000, you owe $400,000. 

You clearly do not understand what "non-repudiation" means...

The only claw-back that will happen is the ones related to any fiat payments Mark and Co made within the last N months in the run-up to bankruptcy.

Do you have a bitcoinaddress I can transfer those 400K to?

That is just insane.

Imagine making a legitimate trade on Gox years ago and withdrawing fiat, then being sued for it back years later. I just can't imagine that would ever get anywhere. For a start there are a host of countries involve where local legislation may apply and money protection laws etc.

Gox wasn't a ponzy scheme, they were just under capitalised. By trading on there, customers of Gox could not be said to be "participating" in the mal-running of the business, so I think the OP's point is purely hypothetical and an imaginary stretch.

There is no comparison with Madoff - the two cases are not remotely like each other. Madoff was running an illegal business model. Gox's business model was perfectly legal, it was just badly managed to the point where it became catastrophic.

Oh yes he's the guy who supports bank bailouts from day 1


Gag orders and subpoena aside  Madoff had the support of regulators where MK was having bank accounts with millions frozen.

The only problem here is there is no central bank what makes it different this time is we don't need one.

Nice!! So I loose 73 Goxcoins and also I'm going to get sued for some 5000 Euros.

Mark just when I think my ass raping cant get any worse. Got to hand it to you mark buddy.

Except, it's pretty clearly not a ponzi scheme. They were running a fractional reserve which is a thing in and of itself. If it were a ponzi scheme, people would have had to have been promised some sort of unrealistic return on their investment, or any return on their investment, which mtGox didn't offer (they didn't offer interest for example). So you couldn't make the argument that new investors were paying old investors, since old investors balances never changed because of new investors. It's clearly not a ponzi.

Ye, and also there's links to CP in the blockchain, so when the IRS raids your house, they will take all your electronics and charge you for CP posession with intent to distribute, and then on top of that slap you a fine for not being FinCen registered for the GPU miner you ran in 2011. Probably you'll end up in some sex offender register and never get a job at a school, become a police, a senator, an astronaut or an NBA star.

Because of bitcoin.

LMFAO MT.Gox the home of 1,000,000 Childporn users. I'm an Idiot for using GOx but you..is mommy also your sister?

Not everyone is an American you know  ;D

No no just because I'm not american it does not automatic make me a terrorist as well as a Pedo. So don't start with that next.


Edit: I am not insinuating that all Americans are the product of incest etc so chill out.

FYI: Gox did a "rewind" in 2011, reversing the trades that took BTC down to a penny.

What is this Gox fuckery of which you speak?

The Goxing Never Stops..24/7 365..Even after Gox dies, Goxing goes for eternity. Thank you Mark, its been a blessing.

First you Gox, then you become goxxed, after that you are permanently goxxed. There's no escape really.

Well if any gox bankruptcy trustee wants to unwind my transaction in 2011, I say bring it on, I sold a bunch of mined bitcoins back then for FIAT, I would be very happy if those transactions could be reversed  ;D

Thank you! +1

This is why I'm encrypting my stash, sooner or later, with whatever excuse the cops will knock down my door.

By then I intend to not be there or at the very least have the pleasure of laughing in their stupid faces.

I know right ;)

Mark your are 100% off my Xmass card list.

You are talking about clawback, but there is some reason that withdrawn btc would not apply for clawback...I just forgot why though :(

I think it might have something to do with me having to knowingly withdrawn funds from an insolvent company at the expense of everyone else or something like that I'm no lawyer.

Yes, you are correct.

Very well put

Mark has the coins

Someone needs to make a "I got goxxed and all I got was this crappy T-shirt." 

A good point.  To fairly reverse the trade, they need to return your asset,  not just demand you return your "profit" from selling the asset.

The profit from sale is not attributable to Mt.Gox's shadiness,  but appreciation in value of your valuable asset.

Returning the dollars that came from appreciation of your asset, without having the asset returned, is just trying to incur an unfair loss on customers to satisfy other creditors.

Bitcoin transactions by definition are not reversible and also by the protocol.
 
No one is going to be affected, that would be like going to an ATM machine and getting a $20 dollar bill that was stolen, first of all you would not have any method of knowing if it was stolen or not, and in the event that it was stolen you got it by legit means even with a record of that, so the one liable it is the thief no one else, laws vary country to country, but insane laws are usually not enforceable, they are the worst since they only exist to harass people otherwise they would be enforced.
 

We have Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin address.

Remember when we used that information to link the address to the person?

Holy shit! If I lost both $ and BTC on gox by trading, can I file a claim if it was certified as a scam?  ;D ;D ;D

Yes, just like the Zeek Rewards resolution where they reversed all the bank transfers en masse.

There was a thread about this yesterday: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=489927.0

It might just turn out that what everyone has been proclaiming to be the final MEGA-Goxxing is just a blip on the road to the REAL MEGA-GOXXING!

I just knew Gox had a last trick up its sleeve!! :D

What like all those that got sucked into the pirateat40 ponzi got all their money back.

Don't be silly. Those with Bitcoins and/or cash still on Gox have lost it. You might as well write it off and be done with it.

The bankruptsy is in Japan, so U.S. law has nothing to do with it.

Not a single costumer made a profit on mtgox. In fact, most made a 0.065% loss on every trade, plus deposit and withdrawal fees.

If you sent $100 and withdrew $1000 that is because your asset increased in market value, not because mtgox paid you out a profit. It would have increased in value independently of mtgox.

The only people who made a profit are the thieves and possibly mtgox themselves.

Yeah, that would be a pretty nice deal.
But they'd likely say that you are required to pay:

Fiat value of the amount of fiat or BTC you withdrew MINUS the fiat value your 30 coins had on the day you deposited them on the Exchange  (or maybe day you traded them to fiat, if the trade is not being rolled back)   MINUS any fiat value that was attributable to the "share" that you get back as MtGox creditor.

sweet, then send me back all the btc that i sold/transfered since then...

about 5k btc over that span... im fine with that  ;D

I don't think this case is comparable to Madoff because he was running a fund which claimed to make profits for those who deposited money. The people who withdrew from the fund would get more money than they deposited. MtGox never claimed to give profits on the deposited money, and nobody got more money because they had deposited anything to MtGox. The point of an exchange is to give away one form of value and get the same value back in another form.

Requiring depositors to pay back what they have withdrawn would be like if a bank went broke and anyone who had withdrawn money in the last 3 years would be required to pay it back. Most customers would have lots of deposits (from salary) and lots of withdrawals in 3 years, but that doesn't mean they've profited.