As this is the official off-topic thread I will take the occasion to say something I always wanted to: I'm really amazed by the NSFW thing US folks use when linking to sex related images.... is so ridiculous I cannot even understand it. How does that work exactly? Naked ladies/porn is specifically considered "not suitable for work" but general news or other non-work related stuff is suitable? What about sports news? Bitcoin stuff? I mean, I'd say that everything non-work related might be considered "not suitable" in many circumstances (you are supposed to be working, not reading about sports or bitcoin, right?), but the fact of specifically labeling "naked ladies/sex" as "not suitable for work" seems to me the reflection of a ridiculously biggot society.  |
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it's obvious that Bitstamp has a problem with its platform and it may sink soon.
I don't think the problems are coming from their bank. Their account is OK but their system is sinking...It may be the next MtGox.
Only... they are anonymous, so sueing them might be much more complicated. Which also means they are more likely to just grab any funds they still have and run. Excuse me, who is anonymous? Are you talking about Bitstamp? Their management has always been very public: https://twitter.com/nejc_kodrichttp://www.crunchbase.com/person/nejc-kodrichttp://si.linkedin.com/pub/nejc-kodri%C4%8D/47/227/299http://si.linkedin.com/pub/damijan-merlak/16/667/4a9?trk=pub-pbmapPlus you can find other Bitstamp employees on Linkedin just by searching "Bitstamp" with no problem. I really don't know where does this myth about Bitstamp being "anonymous" comes from, Coindesk always mentions Nejc when writes about Stamp, Nejc has a btctalk account under his real name which he used to post about his company when he founded it, when you open a ticket on Stamp the support agent always signs the reply with his first+last name... And for Christ sake you just need to google "Bitstamp CEO" to find dozens (if not hundreds) of links about Nejc Kodric. |
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I stubbed my big toe the other day -- I looked down to see what it was and low and behold, transaction malleability. It's everywhere!
Everyone is ragging on the poor guy but won't give him a chance to prove himself. He's been handling MTGOX for years now with no problems and now because he has a small issue everybody wants to crucify him. He looked really heartbroken at the press conference and I belive him when he says he is trying to sort it all out. I believe the bug in the system is true cause for this and that the powers that be behind the Bitcoin program are not helping any. Give Mark a break! Sure, the "bug" made he lose 850k coins to hackers in a few days + dozens of millions in USD. Wow, we just discovered that the US dollar is also vulnerable to transaction malleability. |
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As I wrote in September 2013 during a typical argument with sturle: Defendants are informed and believe that in March and April, 2013 MtGox customers, at the
suggestion of CoinLab, deposited $12,788,701.08 into one or more CoinLab bank accounts;
CoinLab then caused the amount of such funds to be credited to such customers' MtGox
accounts but CoinLab did not transfer the actual funds into the MtGox bank account. As a
result, such customers' MtGox account reflected a higher amount of currency funds available
to such customers than were actually in the MtGox bank account. In April, 2013, and upon
the demand of MtGox, CoinLab transferred a portion of those amounts, $ 7,473,490.29, to the
MtGox bank account, leaving a balance of approximately $ 5,315,210.79 to be transferred to
the MtGox account and which is being wrongfully held by CoinLab. So they they are admitting they have a big hole, and they do not say anywhere that they had to cover the hole with their own money (I would have stated that clearly in the official document, to wipe out doubt about insolvency - wouldn't have you?). The only hard cold fact they are stating is " such customers' MtGox account reflected a higher amount of currency funds available to such customers than were actually in the MtGox bank account". The most plausible explanation to the ongoing delays, given the above and the other information available to the public, is that Gox is low on cash and running a fractional reserve. So, IMO the big question is not "if" they knew they were short of customer's money because it is painfully obvious THEY KNEW, the big question is: WHERE DID THAT MONEY GO???$5.5M are held by Department of Home Security (the "Dwolla situation") and $5.3M by Coinlab, that's clear. But where did the rest of the money go, as they are claming they have a hole of $22M? We need to factor in that they have made +$10M in trading fees during the last year, so in reality the missing money is at least $32M... Crazy stuff, you really can't make this shit up... And I'd bet that the hole was caused by a a few things compounded together: 1) Bad management, eg. considering customer funds as "assets" and thus using them to cover operational expenses believing they would cover that up with fees later on (something similar to what they did by crediting customers accounts with money they did not held in reality as per the Coinlab situation). Maybe they even tried to do some arbitrage with customers money and they fucked up - what I know for sure is that incompetence should NEVER be underestimated. 2) Seizures by LE. We know for sure that DHS is holding $5M of Gox's customers money and that $5.3M are held by Coinlab. It doesn't look like there's more than that because in the leaked docs they clearly listed that money (DHS+Coinlab) as "assets", and there was no other entry for other money that could have potentially been held by other parties. 3) Outright stealing. Right now that seems more plausible to me than a few months ago. I always thought Gox was "basically honest", but after seeing their business plan it seems to me they were just a bunch of amateurs playing with third party money like it was their own - that's criminal negligence at best. They were operating an exchange but their accounting looks like the one of a bank, listing customer deposits as assets of the company, like they could use that money to cover their own expenses. That's crazy (and criminal) in my book. At this point I wouldn't be surprised they even took out dividends from the company at some point, while knowing they were running fractional and virtually bankrupt... And that's stealing. (crosspost from the Wall Observer thread) |
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So, IMO the big question is not "if" they knew they were short of customer's money because it is painfully obvious THEY KNEW, the big question is: WHERE DID THAT MONEY GO???
$5.5M are held by Department of Home Security (the "Dwolla situation") and $5.3M by Coinlab, that's clear. But where did the rest of the money go, as they are claming they have a hole of $22M? We need to factor in that they have made +$10M in trading fees during the last year, so in reality the missing money is at least $32M...
Crazy stuff, you really can't make this shit up.
This is one of the things I dont understand. Yeah okay missing bitcoins could be stolen etc, but where did all the cash go. I bet they received at least 2-3 million in fiat after they shut btc withdrawals and the price crashed. One guy on here sent 800k alone then there was the other guy who sent 55k. It beggars belief it really does. I'd bet that the hole was caused by a a few things compounded together: 1) Bad management, eg. considering customer funds as "assets" and thus using them to cover operational expenses believing they would cover that up with fees later on (something similar to what they did by crediting customers accounts with money they did not held in reality as per the Coinlab situation). Maybe they even tried to do some arbitrage and they fucked up - what I know for sure is that incompetence should NEVER be underestimated. 2) Seizures by LE. We know for sure that DHS is holding $5M of Gox's customers money and that $5.3M are held by Coinlab. It doesn't look like there's more than that because in the leaked docs they clearly listed that money (DHS+Coinlab) as "assets", and there was no other entry for other money that could have potentially been held by other parties. 3) Outright stealing. Right now that seems more plausible to me than a few months ago. I always thought Gox was "basically honest", but after seeing their business plan it seems to me they were just a bunch of amateurs playing with third party money like it was their own - that's criminal negligence at best. They were operating an exchange but their accounting looks like the one of a bank, listing customer deposits as assets of the company, like they could use that money to cover their own expenses. That's crazy (and criminal) in my book. At this point I wouldn't be surprised they even took out dividends from the company at some point, while knowing they were running fractional and virtually bankrupt... And that's stealing. |
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Yes, hopefully authorities will do a good job on investigating that angle. It isn't credible that they didn't notice the fiat hole before.
They knew and its documented. As I wrote in September 2013 during a typical argument with sturle: Defendants are informed and believe that in March and April, 2013 MtGox customers, at the
suggestion of CoinLab, deposited $12,788,701.08 into one or more CoinLab bank accounts;
CoinLab then caused the amount of such funds to be credited to such customers' MtGox
accounts but CoinLab did not transfer the actual funds into the MtGox bank account. As a
result, such customers' MtGox account reflected a higher amount of currency funds available
to such customers than were actually in the MtGox bank account. In April, 2013, and upon
the demand of MtGox, CoinLab transferred a portion of those amounts, $ 7,473,490.29, to the
MtGox bank account, leaving a balance of approximately $ 5,315,210.79 to be transferred to
the MtGox account and which is being wrongfully held by CoinLab. So they they are admitting they have a big hole, and they do not say anywhere that they had to cover the hole with their own money (I would have stated that clearly in the official document, to wipe out doubt about insolvency - wouldn't have you?). The only hard cold fact they are stating is " such customers' MtGox account reflected a higher amount of currency funds available to such customers than were actually in the MtGox bank account". The most plausible explanation to the ongoing delays, given the above and the other information available to the public, is that Gox is low on cash and running a fractional reserve. So, IMO the big question is not "if" they knew they were short of customer's money because it is painfully obvious THEY KNEW, the big question is: WHERE DID THAT MONEY GO???$5.5M are held by Department of Home Security (the "Dwolla situation") and $5.3M by Coinlab, that's clear. But where did the rest of the money go, as they are claming they have a hole of $22M? We need to factor in that they have made +$10M in trading fees during the last year, so in reality the missing money is at least $32M... Crazy stuff, you really can't make this shit up. |
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Lose >99% BTC
Lose >40% fiat
Lose database along with customer identity data
Well, Emptygox couldn't possibly have done a much worse job than this.
The statement is a joke. How come they did not realize until a few days ago that there was a huge discrepancy between the money they were holding in their bank and the money deposited by their customers? You all know this is BS and simply cannot happen. They knew very well they had less than they were supposed to, they just decided to run on fractional reserve and spent customers money to cover their own operational expenses. I wouldn't be surprised if Karpeles even cashed out dividends at some point while knowing the company was virtually bankrupt. He doesn't need dividend. Just by insider trading and arbitraging he would have earned a lot. According to sturle they "didn't need" to run on fractional reserve as they did "so much money" in fees that they could have covered ANY hole caused by seizures, misappropriations and whatnot. My reply: never underestimate greed and incompetence. Bad management can destroy the biggest company in the world. |
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Lose >99% BTC
Lose >40% fiat
Lose database along with customer identity data
Well, Emptygox couldn't possibly have done a much worse job than this.
The statement is a joke. How come they did not realize until a few days ago that there was a huge discrepancy between the money they were holding in their bank and the money deposited by their customers? You all know this is BS and simply cannot happen. They knew very well they had less than they were supposed to, they just decided to run on fractional reserve and spent customers money to cover their own operational expenses. I wouldn't be surprised if Karpeles even cashed out dividends at some point while knowing the company was virtually bankrupt. |
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"On the same day (24th), we found out large discrepancies between the amount of cash held in financial institutions and the amount deposited from our users. The amounts are still under investigation and may vary but they approximate JPY 2.8 bil"
What a fucking joke. More BS from Gox. It's impossible they did not realize they had less money in the bank than they were supposed to have. To begin with they did know very well they were short of aprox. $10M because of Coinlab and DHS. Something very fishy is going on. I hope they go down for good and never come back. |
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Full bankruptcy seems totally inevitable. If those leaked documents are true Gox is considering customer funds as assets, which is completely ridiculous, as they shouldn't even be in their balances as MtGox is not a bank but an exchange. If the numbers on those documents are true then the assets of Gox are near 0, they just have a database with the IDs of 1M infuriated customers and a brand which is destroyed.
Plus, a debt of +700k coins is so unbelievably huge that NOBODY would pay a single penny for Gox if that is true.
I wouldn't buy a single Goxcoin above 0.05,and even at that price I wouldn't risk more than a few play BTC. Chances are the ship has sinked for good.
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Very possible. Just check the blockchain, there are multiple addresses holding 50k coins just a couple of hops away from the 2011 transaction. Doesn't look like a theft at all, coins have been static for almost 3 years and they were not mixed in any way, it looks like the owner of those coins, which is Karpeles, sent them to different addresses in equal batches at the same time, just a few days after he did the big 500k transaction. |
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Forking Bitcoin to make Gox users whole would destroy trust in Bitcoin itself.
I hope you all realize that a chain fork "to make Gox users whole" will never happen. |
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 That could be a way to move the market. You want to move the market? Its not on the site yet..hoax maybe!! Edit: Hoax surely Seems that they removed it fast! Maybe it wasn't meant to be published today. Removed it fast? That's a hoax, you are fooling nobody. |
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Are you nuts? I dont give a shit about your "sturle" and your private pussy vendetta you folks in here are producing.
Pussy vendetta? Some long-time members of this community willingly deceived newcomers. Thats not the point. Plz read what i was responding at. There is no reason why the average customer at MtGox did some "moral haszard behavior" and therefore deserves to loose his funds. Its obv another story if somebody bought Goxcoins at a later state in the story and knew the risk he was taking. In my opinion anyone with funds on Gox knew the risks he was taking. I'll state the obvious again: the writing was on the wall. In my opinion none of the customers with funds on Gox deserves to loose all his funds. Why should that be so? They didnt stole those funds, did they? Neither did they harm anyone just by depositing BTCs or FIAT at the exchange. Its their money and the obv deserve to get them back. I certainly agree with that but I don't see how those who bought "goxBTC" on bitcoinbuilder deserve less than those who just had their funds on Gox. Everybody knew the risks. |
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Guys, this address is allegedly SR? https://blockchain.info/address/1933phfhK3ZgFQNLGSDXvqCn32k2buXY8a I can tell you that it is 1-hop from my Mt. Gox deposit address from 2011. Basically I deposited to Gox, and within few hours, deposit has been moved to this address and everything is still there. Could it be Mt Gox cold storage? Very unlikely. It's much more likely that's one DPR's addresses. |
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Are you nuts? I dont give a shit about your "sturle" and your private pussy vendetta you folks in here are producing.
Pussy vendetta? Some long-time members of this community willingly deceived newcomers. Thats not the point. Plz read what i was responding at. There is no reason why the average customer at MtGox did some "moral haszard behavior" and therefore deserves to loose his funds. Its obv another story if somebody bought Goxcoins at a later state in the story and knew the risk he was taking. In my opinion anyone with funds on Gox knew the risks he was taking. I'll state the obvious again: the writing was on the wall. |
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Are you nuts? I dont give a shit about your "sturle" and your private pussy vendetta you folks in here are producing.
Pussy vendetta? Some long-time members of this community willingly deceived newcomers. |
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I would just like to add that the writing has been on the wall for MANY months. Here some quotes from +4 months ago, which are basically big discussions with Sturle, in chronological order,: they are heavily delaying outcoming wires, while incoming wires work just fine (ohhh... No "overwhelming" with incoming money?). Everything strongly indicates they are having liquidity problems, and that they have been forced by circumstances (seizures, Coinlab, misappropriation) to run a fractional reserve.
2+2 = 4
Gox is short of $10M and they are heavily delaying withdrawals. They make up stupid excuses such as "the old financial system cannot follow the thriving BTC economy" and "our huge volume is overwhelming the biggest bank is Japan". Still, there's no problem with the money coming in, only with the money going out.
At the same time, Bitstamp is actually handling a higher volume, and processing withdrawals quickly and smoothly.
The most plausible scenario is simply that Gox is having liquidity problems.
Defendants are informed and believe that in March and April, 2013 MtGox customers, at the
suggestion of CoinLab, deposited $12,788,701.08 into one or more CoinLab bank accounts;
CoinLab then caused the amount of such funds to be credited to such customers' MtGox
accounts but CoinLab did not transfer the actual funds into the MtGox bank account. As a
result, such customers' MtGox account reflected a higher amount of currency funds available
to such customers than were actually in the MtGox bank account. In April, 2013, and upon
the demand of MtGox, CoinLab transferred a portion of those amounts, $ 7,473,490.29, to the
MtGox bank account, leaving a balance of approximately $ 5,315,210.79 to be transferred to
the MtGox account and which is being wrongfully held by CoinLab. They are admitting they have a big hole, and they do not say anywhere that they had to cover the hole with their own money (I would have stated that clearly in the official document, to wipe out doubt about insolvency - wouldn't have you?). The only hard cold fact they are stating is " such customers' MtGox account reflected a higher amount of currency funds available to such customers than were actually in the MtGox bank account". Plus, instead of being transparent and disclosing their balances as any serious company would do after the mainstream media started to write that Gox might be insolvent (Forbes, Wired....), while many customers started to leave them for good, causing a very unhealthy spread of +10% between exchanges, they just make up absurd excuses such as "the current withdraw problems are being caused by the traditional banking system, not because of a lack of liquidity at MtGox. The traditional banking partners that MtGox needs to work with, are not able to keep up with the demands of the growing Bitcoin economy" Really? The above seems the most plausible answer to you after all the facts Gox have been hiding and that we now know? Finally, I'm amazed by the fact you keep repeating "they have $12M in their order book", like that is somewhat reassuring: - that money is just on Gox balances, it might very well not being backed by fiat in their back accounts (AS THEY ADMITTED IN THE COUNTER-SUE TO COINLAB)
- even if that money is fully backed by existing funds in their bank, what do you want them to do with it? That is supposed to be their customers money, they are not supposed to operate/cover holes with that!!
- I don't know if you have any experience in running a business, but it doesn't seem so: the fact is they only have $12M in the order book (again: customers money), and they admittedly have a hole of $10M. So, the hole is almost equal to the full amount of fiat they have in their order book, and roughly half of the all time high fiat amount they EVER had on their order book. That's HUGE, try to extrapolate that to Forex and tell me that covering such a hole wouldn't be a problem for them
- Another fact is they allegedly had only an income of $8M during the 4 months of all time high usd volume EVER, and again the hole is $10M. Let me tell you that's a huge hit for a business, having a hole significantly (20%) bigger that the income you got in your best 4 months ever is a BIG problem for ANY company. When the alleged hole was "just" $5M, I thought it was bearable. Now that we discover the hole is *at least* $10M, I can't help being worried.
Occam's would say that they are running out of cash
and the reply from Sturle to my post above: Don't bother. Rampion is vaccinated against facts and logic. Completely immune. He doesn't even read this thread (or does it very selectively), just post here from time to time.
Amazed by how people still tries to cash out using MtGox.
IMO this rally may give them additional fuel, but they are on the brink of something very bad. Too many months of obvious illiquidity.
Mt Gox has redeemed itself in my eyes. I waited 3 months for an earlier regular swift withdrawal. Cancelled it and requested expedited 5% fee withdrawal instead. Today, about 2 weeks later, just like they promised, he money hit my account. 5 figure USD amount
Wow, "expedited" or "emergency" 5% withdrawal that takes between 2 weeks and 4 weeks to clear... So much for the "emergency" Honestly, I still think what I wrote weeks ago: the 5% fee is just a desperate attempt to make some extra money to cover Gox's losses. The BS about "the traditional banking system" not able to keep up with their volume is UTTER BS, guys I hope you know what Occam's Razor indicates here: Gox is doing fractional reserve with customers money, they have a huge hole of at least $10M and they are struggling to cover it, and that's the only reason of the huge delays in withdrawals. Wonderful reply by Sturle to my post above: Your mouth is big, your documentation non-existing, you are making up holes, and you fail to explain anything in a way that makes sense.
I think somebody owes an apology to the community, btw. |
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I've filled it previously, sent them my id and bill and registration card. Then entered the bank data with swiftcode etc. Now the ask for this: We received your withdrawal request. As your withdrawal request met some of our volume and frequency thresholds, we will have to kindly ask you to help us better understand the nature of your relationship with Bitstamp. In order to do so, we require that an additional KYC (know your customer) procedure is completed before we can proceed with the processing of your transfer.
We kindly ask you to send us a high resolution image double page of your international passport and answer the following KYC questionnaire:
1. How did you learn about Bitcoin?
2. The purpose of trading on Bitstamp?
3. What is the origin of the deposited Bitcoins? If mining, please specify your hardware specifications and submit a receipt or an invoice for your mining equipment.
4. What are your future plans and activities planned on our exchange?
5. Do you plan more withdrawals in the future?
6. Which bank are you using? Please provide the complete address and SWIFT code.
We kindly ask you to submit your answers and documents in a reply to this ticket.
I was asked these questions when I made withdrawals in November/December 2013 from Bitstamp, so this is nothing out of the ordinary. I answered the questions and received my withdrawals as normal. If that's real what they are doing, Im not going to use them. I can understand only question 4 and 6. It's not their business if I mine, I can tell it, but no way to give " hardware specifications and submit a receipt or an invoice for your mining equipment." This is getting absolutely grazy. I was about to move my things to Bitstamp including integrate online shops with them. I have already there verified account, but they can now do whatever they want. I will do my business at other places. I didn't see the "submit a receipt or an invoice for your mining equipment". When I was asked those questions they didn't ask for that, the question was just "What is the origin of the deposited Bitcoins?". |
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It is going down - 500 to be tested soon.
Reason: we are not that much below the long-term trend, so given the sentiment, we are "hanging in the air" when the solid ground is in 400-500, below that is a steal and above that is hopes.
Well, I hope you are right, I had a large deposit which hit today Bitstamp and I placed all my bids between $520 and $400. Doesn't look too good ATM to be honest, but patience is a virtue. Could take more than a week to see a real pullback. After the price bottomed at $65 in June 2013 it shot up to $100 in 6 days, and another 6 days after that there finally was a pullback where it touched $77 again and then stabilized around $85 before going up further. I remember very well. I loaded the truck between $65 and $100, I bought so much that my average buy in skyrocketed from $10ish to $30ish. Good times. Anyhow, I have to admit that at that time I expected the price to revisit the $50s, so I missed the opportunity to buy even more... But I remember those days with joy, I cannot help laughing out loud when I remember the hilarious gifs TheKoziTwo posted while we went down... Do you remember? The '80s... The '70s..... The '60s..... Lol, what a pity that we missed the '50s. I would have loved a mad-men themed gif |
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