It is beautiful. In fact it looks almost like a .... starfish... with a crown.

If true, this is looking like good news for creditors - unless this is just one huge retainer for their legal firm.  

MtGox is either in control of the coins or someone else is and they're being run through the exact same Mtgox fund disbursement algorithm, which seems far less likely.

We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that tx replacement issues were considered and accounted for at the very beginning, by Satoshi himself:

Using the sequence and lock_time fields prevents a tx from being replaced by another tx after the specified time (or block number, or ever if sequence = UINT_MAX). Essentially all transactions currently being broadcast have sequence == UINT_MAX, so they should never be replaced if the protocol is followed.

A race conditon between maliciously broadcast double-spend tx's will always be a function of how well connected the initial receiving nodes are, and the timing of the double spend tx broadcast. There's really no way around waiting for confirmations for absolute transaction certainty.

Best practice should be to always reject an incoming tx if it already has a counterpart in the mempool, where sequence == UINT_MAX. This is currently considered normal behavior and is probably the only thing that saved the network from being overwhelmed by the large scale TM attack in early Feb.

Non-conforming nodes are simply not following the protocol (i.e. they are disregarding the sequence parameter).

On the other hand, the possibility of being disconnected as a rogue/misbehaving node should be sufficient incentive to follow the protocol. Nothing minimizes profits like mining in your own little network of one.

Satoshi actually included a very useful mechanism in the protocol specifications and data structures which was implemented but is 'disabled' in BitcoinQT.

Using the sequence and lock_time fields prevents a tx from being replaced by another tx after the specified time (or block number, or ever if sequence = UINT_MAX). Essentially all transactions being broadcast have sequence == UINT_MAX, so they should never be replaced if the protocol is followed.

Any "replace-by-fee" mechanism that ignores the sequence and lock_time fields would not only be considered broken by Satoshi, it would introduce a huge and entirely unnecessary vulnerability to 0-conf transactions.

Replace-by-fee is a very bad idea.

Well one thing's for sure, they won't be chatting about it on irc.

You can be sure anything 'overheard' on irc was meant to be.

There's been an ongoing effort on reddit to collect relevant addresses:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1z14j0/needed_any_bitcoin_addresses_you_have_used_to/

Needless to say, there are quite a few interested in gaining some insight into what really happened.

There has been very little evidence of duplicated tx's by mtgox, certainly nowhere near enough to account for even a tiny fraction of 850k coins. The true story is right there in the blockchain of course, but there are just too many pieces missing (i.e. mtgox cold storage addresses).

Mtgox undoubtedly knows the true story, but clearly are either not willing - or at liberty - to make anything but vague statements.

"bitcoin days destroyed" stats point to large movements of long-stored coins at a few recent mtgox-related dates.

Surprising it's taken so long for the honey pot theory to be suggested.

Mr. Karpeles nonchalant demeanor certainly has been more suggestive of a puppet than a puppet-master.

Mixer of some type. Anyone know who controls this address?

Mt.Gox's vague description of the so called bitcoin "bug" that they are blaming for losses, from their latest site update (3/3/14) :


Time will tell if there's any truth to it at all, but one things for sure: Without any blockchain evidence, which they would of course have, no one is going to accept these increasingly unbelievable tales at face value.

The key word being "reasonable" of course.  

If this mechanism was somehow partially responsible for coin loss it leaves two possibilities:
1. Keys were deleted and the coins are now inaccessible (unless HD key generation was used, or the keys can otherwise be recovered from backup, etc.)
2. Keys were saved, and just need to be correlated with the orphaned coins (i.e. they were lost track of)

Both seem relatively unlikely - but remember - this was Mt.gox where it seems almost nothing was beyond the realm of possibility.

Interestingly, ongoing blockchain analysis has revealed that (at least recent) gox btc payouts used exactly that sequence, single payouts with disposable intermediate change addresses:


hw -> t1 -> t2 -> t3 ... etc
           \       \       \
         out1   out2   out3 ...

Beginning with a larger amount from a hot wallet with individual payouts (cust withdrawals) of decreasing size with the remaining dust amt. returned to a gox wallet.

A few possible TM attack payments were identified, but very few, and without rejected mempool inventory (or gox) logs, not really provable.

Edit: On the other hand, if grau's theory holds true, there should be some blockchain evidence out there (i.e. dead-end branches from hot wallets holding varying change amounts).
It would fit well with the vague gox claims of "not really gone, just not accessible..", large number of failed, non-confirming tx's etc.
Double payments wouldn't necessarily be evident either.

Interesting possibility.

Here's one of the few identified possible TM duplicate tx's within one such recent payout chain (just prior to gox withdrawal shutdown):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1z14j0/needed_any_bitcoin_addresses_you_have_used_to/cfptosz

originating gox hot wallet (or dust collector) for above tx chain:

https://blockchain.info/address/16MBuCHx5Q1JGmN3TTbbssfVSPpUjAv8SF


  

Evidence is emerging to support the Mt.Gox hacking claims.

Mark Karpeles may have been an (incredibly) incompetent CEO, but at this point there's nothing that supports any intentional theft on his part.

He have been criminally negligent, but nothing really suggests criminal intent at this point.

+100

BTC-e is far less transparent than Mt.Gox ever was. The whole enterprise is a giant red flag on almost every level.

Some of us have watched in amazement as they've grown to the current trading volumes. Probably only due to lack of legitimate alternatives.

... or maybe we could just peg them to Dogecoin at 1:1.

But seriously - this could be a difficult test for the 'fungibility' of bitcoin. If the coins are somehow tracked, should they really be considered untainted or could this lead to legitimization of the black- or redlisting that's been previously proposed?

Anyone who's cheering the demise of Mt.Gox and thinks that this is somehow "good for bitcoin" etc. has seriously misread the current situation.

6-7% of all bitcoins in the hands of unknown criminals is very, very bad for bitcoin and will have repercussions, both short and long term, that we can't even begin to fathom at this point.

Exchanges worldwide have already been served with subpoenas. There is ample evidence that large scale blockchain mapping efforts have been underway for quite some time now. Some groups already have evidence to at least partially substantiate Mt.Gox's "malleability" hacking claims.

Hopefully at least some of these coins will be traced/seized/recovered. It's difficult to completely obfuscate 6-7% of all bitcoins over several years without slipping up somewhere.

The soft assets alone (customer base of 1m+ verified customers) are easily worth 100's of millions. Someone will almost certainly buy the assets from the trustee. The only question is how much, if any, reimbursement of customer losses will be. Estimates seem to indicate cash/btc assets of about 18% of liabilities. That's not counting any lawyer fees, and they're already lining up over this one.  

Don't underestimate how tough it is to destroy a brand. We're still buying gas at Exxon and BP...

How about Ripple (and Mt.Gox) founder Jed McCaleb?

He still apparently owns 12% of Mt.Gox - it should be interesting to see how he becomes involved in this.
He seems to have had zero oversight over their operations after he sold (most of) it ...

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.