Why do you keep insisting on calling this theft? Nothing is being stolen. The miners would simply be refusing to aid what they believe to be a theft or fraud.

I agree, it is a change of the protocol, however, none is stealing the private keys of anyone else.

To avoid miners wasting effort on blocks, this could be phased in at a certain block number. There would be no need for miners who are following the consensus to surrender any earned rewards. It is just a matter of whether the majority of miners would choose to support what is just, that is all, and choosing not to have their own effort mining used to support a massive fraud or theft.

They may decide that they don't wish to have their mining power used to support a massive fraud or theft. Deciding to drop valid blocks for that reason has a far greater ethical imperative than doing so to enhance one's own profits.

As I suggested at the beginning of the thread, I would suggest a group of people, reasonably respected in the community, be set up to judge the evidence. To proceed fairly they would have to weigh the evidence for particular addresses. These addresses can always be unlocked if an owner can submit proof of proper ownership by other than Mt. Gox.

There are quite a few discussions on the web where the evidence looks reasonably compelling that there are large blocks of bitcoin which previously belonged to Mt. Gox and haven't been spent since. I don't believe it is accurate to qualify this evidence as "no idea".

There is another alternative to viewing this as arresting the wealth of anyone. It could be viewed as the miners simply refusing to take part in what they judge to be an unethical transaction. I don't think there is anything wrong with miners deciding they don't want to support what may be a massive fraud or theft.

I don't believe it would require 100% of all miners. A simple majority, a bit over 50% of the hashing power, should suffice, right?


I would suggest they drop it. That way it wouldn't pay to waste a mined block including such a transaction. Since miners choose which transactions are included in the block, they needed include them in the first place.

Hopefully we would all learn that the community can pull together for the sake of justice?

In any case, I imagine this would depend almost entirely on what the miners are willing to do, and if a majority of the hashing power would support it.

I don't believe this requires an immediate change in the client software, does it? Simply the software used by the miners would need to be changed to not incorporate transactions spending from the locked addresses. Eventually I suppose it should be incorporated into the main client software, but that is not the main priority.

Anyone who feels their coins have been unfairly locked, because they weren't part of the Mt. Gox wallets, can just provide proof of ownership to the appropriate group to have the addresses removed from the locked list. Clearly this would require good evidence, but that can be arranged and weighed appropriately.

This shouldn't inconvenience many people at all, at least not the honest ones, and would prevent either insiders at Mt. Gox or the alleged thieves from being able to move these coins until the facts are resolved.

When the bankruptcy is cleared up, which I understand will likely be a year or more, then the coins can be unlocked. Obviously, not something we would want to be doing for every theft and problem, but perhaps something to consider when major problems affecting substantial sums are involved. In fact, the ability to perform such a lock under extreme circumstances can be considered a strength of Bitcoin.

There is nothing wrong with the Bitcoin community, as a consensus, saying they want to be just and support law enforcement in such cases. In fact, I would argue it is using available information and the capabilities of new crypto-currencies in a freedom supporting way.

I don't believe this requires any blocks to be erased or modified in any way. The miners can simply refuse to add transactions moving bitcoin out from the locked addresses to any other address, that is all. All other aspects of new blocks produced can remain the same.

I don't know that miners are under any legal obligation to carry any transactions at all. Therefore, they can pick and choose. If they choose not to carry transactions involved in such a large criminal activity, that would strike me as reasonable, at least until the matter is properly settled in court.

My impression was that supposedly they implemented a new trading engine to speed up transactions after the meltdown.

Does the PHP code look like a new sped up trading engine? Or is it more likely the code used prior to that time?

I think the idea here would be for the miners to not put such transactions on the chain in the first place. In that case, would a change in the majority of the clients be needed?

I understand the whole fungibility issue and understand it is contentious.

Given the possible recent leak of the Mt. Gox source code and database, what would the core developers and mining community think of locking the apparent large wallet balances belonging to Mt. Gox, Mark Karpeles, and Jeb McCaleb by changing the protocol for now?

The idea would not be to accept any transactions spending these bitcoin until the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case is sorted out. A committee, possibly appointed by the Bitcoin Foundation, could verify proper ownership before the coins are cleared for spending and a change back is made.

This would be a bit different than the idea of taking the coins permanently, or permanently invalidating them. The intention here would be to simply assist the legal process.

I know this is not something which can be done for every theft, etc., but we are talking about 6% of all bitcoin mined to date, which are presently tangled up in a real legal mess.

I suppose a general principle to govern this could be that when an entity controlling greater than some number of fraction of bitcoin is subject to legal action, such as a bankruptcy, charges of fraud, lawsuits, etc., that coins may be locked pending the outcome of litigation.

Absolutely not. Mark Karpeles is either criminally negligent or involved in criminal activity. In either case, he should not be the representative director for this action. We will be determining what legal motions can force him from this position and force both him and other officers out of any access to Mt. Gox files. The professionals need to take over now.

As I've noted previously, we are now putting together a group working with a law firm in Japan to represent the interest of Mt. Gox creditors during the civil rehabilitation procedure (similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the USA).

Some significant issues we hope to address are the potential criminal negligence involved, protecting remaining assets, and a fair and appropriate treatment for bitcoin assets.

We are looking for additional creditors to join us in legal actions. If you are a Mt. Gox creditor with more than 40 BTC or $20,000 (or equivalent Euros) on deposit with Mt. Gox and would like to join us, please pm me including your email address and name. I will then add you to our email list for updates regarding our actions and thoughts on proceeding.

There is also a reward now for part of this puzzle. I suppose it may get larger. Perhaps you can claim it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=495089.0

There is now a reward for a key part of this puzzle: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=495089.0

We have retained one, there may be others. See the thread on forcing Mt. Gox into involuntary bankruptcy or PM me.

Perhaps also see this other thread, which has some interesting results:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=492776

OK, for this sort of proof I would chip in 1.0 BTC.

This is a very good idea and would be one of the key pieces in determining what has been going on. Knowing the main cold storage wallets just before trading shutdown would also be quite valuable.

I have commented that serious forensic analysis is good here. That is one of the advantages of a public blockchain.

This may end up being the issue in bankruptcy court. These transactions after the point where they didn't have the coins they claimed they were selling may all be declared invalid, before any payouts are made.