I've moved this discussion here as it is more of a legal matter.


Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer either, just a person with a fair amount of experience in business law.

As I said, it will be interesting to see how that claim plays out. Although there may be a stipulated damages clause, there may be some other factors that come into play:

Did Coinlab completely fulfill their end of the bargain? If not, they themselves may be liable for a counter-claim and it could weaken the stipulated damages clause.

Were there acts beyond Mt. Gox's control that affected their ability to perform? Such as the DDOS attacks and a massive increase in trading volume and value.

Does the massive increase in volume at Mt. Gox make the terms of the original agreement with Coinlab unconscionable?

There may be a variety of defenses by Mt. Gox, so we'll need to hear the other side of the story. Of course, that is what depositions and trials are for.

I've been trading with CampBX for a bit now. Money in and out is much easier in the U.S. They seem fairly responsible, though do get slowed by volume.

I think it is definitely correct that we should all make a conscious effort to try and use exchanges other than Mt. Gox to try and stabilize the Bitcoin environment. There are 3 with some volume now, CampBX, BTC-e, and Bitstamp. Let's all try and use them.

Actually, yes, I did read the complaint. While I can readily believe that Mt Gox failed to perform, given their history, the $50M in stipulated damages will be interesting to see it plays out. How much could Coinlab actually have invested in this and paid to Mt. Gox ? Coinlab's compensatory damages would appear to be much lower than $50M.

The fact that Coinlab continues to refer people to the Mt. Gox site from their own (when other exchanges are available) may end up being a reasonable defense.

Hopefully Coinlab will move on and create a new U.S. market, rather than trying to quickly turn a $500k VC investment into $50M of stipulated damages.

Why on earth are they still directing people to Mt. Gox to trade?

I think a new board that is focused on diversifying exchanges would be a good thing.

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Why are you restricting firearms sales?

Both are outside the U.S. and not subject to Fincen regulation. Mt. Gox is having a different company deal with their U.S. customers for transfers into/out of the U.S. and they will handle Fincen.

I doubt BTC-e will ever register. There is not even stated actual physical address for that business or the domain registration. The registration contains what appear to be fake phone numbers.

Firstly, this is not always so. Occasionally BTC-e is actually higher than Mt. Gox, which is one way to move money into BTC-e.

The difficulty of funding BTC-e, as well as the fact that there is no stated address or identity for the principles, likely has something to do with it.

I think you will have to move the cash elsewhere, then into OKPAY. I asked Bitinstant and they are not presently doing pay into BTC-e.

I've been signed up for a while, though this is my first posting. Hoping the age of my account will allow me to use the Ripple giveaway.

allinvain, firstly sorry to hear about this theft.

This is theft, and on a major scale, so I suspect it would be best to call the RCMP or other appropriate law enforcement.

We always hear about how BTC are really just pseudonymous. This case will be a good check on that. Hopefully it will be possible to track down who did this and put them behind bars.