Bitcoin Forum

Anyone else having long delays on Liberty Reserve withdrawls?

MtGox listed 1-3 hours.

Went to bed and it still hasn't shown up 17 hours later. I'm not impatient, just curious if anyone else is having similar issues. I figured it was an automated system and shouldnt take this long.

I withdrew to LR from bitcoin7.com and it has taken more than 2 days (sent on Saturday).  On the other hand Dwolla is much quicker.  I believe the relative difficulty moving dollars through LR only exchanges attributes to their difference in prices.

 :o

Keep posting your experiences.

I find this situation interesting and will try to look into this a bit more closely. If LR is operating as an exchanger (of paper currencies for their LR liabilities), I'm thinking that there are really not many situations were a "shortage" could be experienced preventing folks from simply exchanging back the way they exchanged in.

Just thinking about it offhand: Either a severe disturbance in the mix of currencies exchanged has taken place (much more XYZ in for LR; concurrently LR out for USD, and similar), or LR is operating on a fractional-reserve basis, and using a portion the demand deposits for other purposes (like any modern bank).

Rothbardians in the forum recognize fractional-reserve as a form of fraud, esp. when not disclosed. So then there is reason to be alert and keep pressing for more detail about this situation.

--edit 201107010007 UTC--

I haven't ever used LR myself, so I'm rather ignorant to the particulars, but in reading their materials I see that LR's organization depends on an independent network of exchangers who are willing to accept LR in exchange for the political or commodity-backed digital currencies they deal in. Apparently the shortage is in LR$ liabilities not USD itself?

So I am trying to mentally playout the transaction process from Mt. Gox.

Hypothetical:
Say I've got BTC, exchange it at Mt. Gox for LR$ (let's forget Dwolla for the moment). Now I want to move these LR$ off my Mt. Gox account into my own LR account. What has to happen?

And I have to mentally playout the side of the seller(s) which whom I had just traded inside Mt. Gox to get my LR$ balance. Presumably they funded their Mt. Gox accounts with LR$ (forgetting the other methods for the moment).

So for them, they used an indie exchanger to get from fiat-paper money or digital money to LR$, and sent LR$ from their account to Mr. Gox. THEN...Mt. Gox crossed our trade, so I got their LR$ and they got my BTC. So in this case these LR$ exist (they really came to Mt. Gox), so there should be no problem getting Mt. Gox to place them on my LR$ account (they have the funds).

Their could be processing delay. I heard scuttlebutt someplace that Mt. Gox and LR don't yet have a way to fully automate making this transfer. But, in this instance, why the "shortage"? There would be no real shortage (unless Mt. Gox did not keep the LR$ it received from my trading partner in escrow).

Possibly the fact the Mt. Gox is trying to use this amalgamated concept of "dollars" as the trade object against BTC means that they have to horse-about behind the scenes converting the various "dollar" inputs from one service (LR) to another (Dwolla, bank wire of USD, etc.).

How is my logic train here? Could this actually be a Mt. Gox problem, not a problem with the LR organization?

LibertyReserve at MtGox is delayed up to 5 business days.
https://mtgox.zendesk.com/entries/20239036-important-notice-libertyreserve-delays

Looks like people are abusing all of the Bitcoin exchanges to get LibertyReserve.

I think I was guilty of that. Deposited via Dwolla to MTGox, to withdraw to LR to transfer and buy on Bitcoin7.

It took finally 24 hours for LR from MTGox.

Just to note I got double charged to deposit LR on Bitcoin7. Normally LR caps their fee at $2.99 but it was over $5 in fees to get $500 LR dollars into Bitcoin 7. Bitcoin7 seems to take the additional and just calculate it as a full 1%.

I think I see more clearly the trouble on this subject. When Mt. Gox started, it was only BTC-LRUSD, so it was always the case that counter-parties had the currency desired in the trades that executed.

But now, Mt. Gox has bent their exchange into trading between BTC and USD-like-thingys. So one side of trading is funding their account with BTC. The other side of trading is funding their account by one of a number of different means, all said to represent USD. Bank wires (most like USD), LRUSD, Dwolla, etc. But, once all this stuff settles in the trader's account, it's all just treated simply as generic USD-like-thingys.

So if Alice, Bob, and Gwen are the only Mt. Gox users; Alice deposits 50 LRUSD, Bob deposits $50 via bank wire, and Gwen exchanges with these two for her 6.25 BTC. Now Gwen has $100 in her account, but it's really $50 and $50 LRUSD. If she then goes to withdraw her entire balance via LR, Mt. Gox has to horse about behind the scenes and buy some LR with formerly Bob's $50 bank wire deposit, to give to Gwen.

And it is THIS which is creating the delay. Too many people came into the system with USD-like-thingys other than LR, to find matches with the people trying to now withdraw their USD-like-thingy balances to LR accounts.

I hope Mt. Gox isn't upset about that. They dug that hole themselves all right. They effectively chose to become a sort of exchanger by aggregating all the various USD-like-thingys they accept into a single tradeable entity. At that point they were working an averages scheme to avoid having to convert among the thingy types. Then, they got hit with demands in excess of their expectations.

Do I have that right?

Andrew, yes, I think you have that right.  When I read the less than helpful "support" message at Gox it basically reads "we're out of LibRes money".  They are short and can't balance their accounts.

Oever at Tradehill they split their USD and LR which in some respects is a pain, and in others provides some more cross-pairs to watch, but most significantly, allows them to balance the payments.

No lr withdraws are always instant ;)

instant from gox or LR maybe, but not always at the receiving end  :(

It was about a week ago that i requested my LR payment from mtgox, and i'm still waiting  >:(

Same here, one week has passed, sent a "ticket" or whatever its called on the support, no answer there either.

I got my transfers eventually (after a 4 days, 6 days and 7 days) - three small transfers done around the same time.  This lack of liquidity is keeping me away from Gox at the moment.