if Abe actually goes through with real reform and stops tinkering with his shitty hawkish right-wing beliefs, and the price of oil continues to drop, they might pull it off. That being said I think "trickle-down" is bullshit and I've watched the current profits from companies NOT result in wage increases (yet). However, as Abe's current slogan goes, its the ONLY way. what the hell else is this country gonna do?

Hey bitcoinwisdom,

Long time no see, havent been around in 9 months or so...

Recently, things have been glitchy so I thought I'd let you know. In a maximized window, the left half of trade volumes tends to disappear, and using zoom tends to break the chart as well, either by disappearing or by accumulating candlesticks all over the place like a blur.

It's a great site and I'm still using it. I wish there was JPY charts but yeah, zero liquidity on Kraken/Quoine/Coincheck, so I guess I'll wait.

Thanks for sticking with this for all this time.

itsunderstood care to take out your garbage

Hi Bitcoinwisdom,

Its been a while. Thanks for keeping the site running. I use your Mt.Gox btcjpy every day. I havent even closed the window in a month, I just refresh it after sleep...

The past few times I've tried to click on Bitstamp though, your site times out. Everything OK with Bitstamp? Its odd because the price at the top left is always refreshing, but I can't go to the chart...

Keep up the good work. Oh, and obviously don't remove Mt. Gox, many people in Japan and Europe still use it....

Thanks!

Yes. I bought some goxcoin, txed to josh, traded for bitcoin at about 2:1, it is pending now but it showed up in 20 mins or so. BTC are in my account to be ssoooooold for $$$

If you are using Gox and USD though your still fucked. I live in Japan so you know I'm prancing about my apartment in my underwear right now.

EDIT: This was today. Josh does transfers once daily, manually, at 11PM PST. Notice of receive was within 20 minutes.

word but the whole time i was reading that, i thought you were just doing some doge meme.

"hard gox move much money, wow."

We can agree to disagree, neither of us having actual knowledge of the goings on of ANY of these companies. All of the companies you mentioned however aren't flooded with looping arbitration transfers like Gox was leading up to current mess. That being said, I don't have physical evidence, so...

About the Polish bank. Not sure what you mean exactly. Your first and second statement contradict. Mt. Gox is a company based in Japan. They send fiat to Europe via the Polish bank, from a Japanese bank called Japan Net Bank. If you live have an account with that Polish bank, I suppose you are right that it is incorrect to call it intermediary. However if you forget that it is not the only bank in the process, then you lose sight of the restrictions placed on Gox by Japanese banks. Get my drift?

As for the other exchange. Bitstamp? You know more than I. I thought that it WASN't known, maybe that was BTC-e though. Sorry. I don't use other exchanges much, I live in Japan. But the bank's size does not speak to their KYC/AML policies, either.

I'm not sure what you consider "deep shit" to be. But I'm not sure I disagree with you anyway. As I said, I took a devil's advocate stance. Thanks for correcting my mistake about Bitstamp.

Just a quick note, surfing through my JNB acct online and guess what I found?

1日あたりの振込・送金限度額（初期設定金額300万円）を1万円単位で引き上げできます。

個人のお客さま    0 ～ 1億円    0 ～ 1,000万円
営業性個人のお客さま    0 ～ 1億円    0 ～ 1,000万円
法人のお客さま    0 ～ 1億円

$1mil per day (thereabouts with exchange rate)

Can anyone weigh in on this? The $64,000 question being, is this a big or small number for Gox for transfers in Japan?

It should be noted, I cannot find a limit on the NUMBER of transfers. Doubtless because, what normal human being would want to know? I'll post if I find it but I think I'm gonna have to make a phone call for information that random. Which'll have to wait til business hours on Monday...




Thanks alfa. I hear what you are saying. I personally believe that once more exchanges (esp in the US) come about, MtGox will indeed become a primarily Japanese exchange. The reason its so international is because it was one of the first, and despite the complaints on this forum, it still has a lot of trust (or did until a couple weeks ago. its gotten bad press in the Times, CNNMoney, etc as of this latest fiasco).

But Mark is like anyone else. Greedy. Why serve just Japan when you can serve the world and get more money? And despite the major issues and doomsaying, people are still sending Gox their money! So, why should he stop? For good customer service? Apparently, he doesn't care. He is making money because he can, and everyone is giving him business because they are greedy too. Such is the way of things.

Cryptog arent you a Japanese resident?

You can't make international withdrawals with furikomi. As far as I know, they don't even do kokusaisoukin. JNB is literally on the net, they have almost no physical branches, I don't believe they offer intl tx.


V, opening a bank account here isn't really an option. Some people will tell you its possible, but they are only technically correct and basically tooting their own horn about their knowledge of Japan. There are many obstacles to getting an account here. The easiest way is to simply be living here. I studied Japanese for 6 years... and now I can read the JNB website, but after 3 years of it in college, no, I definitely could not read that website haha. Either give up on Japan or make a bitfriend here. I'd say PM me, but none of us trusts the other, and it'd probably inconvenience me (unless you have a boatload and are willing to give me a couple hundred bucks for my inconvenience, haha).

Also, please count in business days. Here are Japanese banking holidays (weekends are also holiday). http://www.boj.or.jp/en/about/outline/holi.htm/
It makes the conversation about delays much easier once you count out the business days, I promise. As an example, my own experiences with Gox, using domestic transfer.

Jan 5- Jan 16 This was actually 8 business days. 14th was a holiday.
Jan 27- Feb 17th This is 14 business days.

Basically all transfers requested from the 6th onwards were 14 business days, mine submitted on the 5th was both earlier in the queue, and using JNB when most people didn't have a JNB account.
People count in weeks and you get all sorts of "delays". In the end, it all stacks up very reasonably.

But hell, if you are desperate, PM me if you want. I could use the little +1 below my username.

Oh lordy. The trolling.

You could apply for a job at Tibanne, though you probably don't live in Japan, do ya? I imagine they are having trouble finding employees. They don't have the time to file the paperwork to sponsor someone for a visa, nor the inclination to get them a place to live, etc. Each one is a time-consuming process here, haha. So they are stuck with the oddballs living in Tokyo. I'm sure there are a few good coders there but at this point, who wants to work for Mt. Gox?

Oh you could try to beat the trolls down. Bitcoin is like the wild west, you know? Rumors carry more weight than fact. This forum actually gets quoted on not just CoinDesk (which hates Gox hahahaha), but I've seen this forum quoted on CCNMoney! Would you believe it?! Lots of people lurk here. Many people read into the FUD posted as if it were fact. There is no reliable news source for the bitcoin world. Just unreliable ones.

What's happening at Gox with fiat and btc withdrawals both, its unfortunate. Well its downright bad. People wants heads to roll. But take out the FUD, do you think Gox should be trading at 1/6 of Bitstamp? Or maybe the masses are all mashing F5 on CoinDesk. Its 6pm in Tokyo, oh god, oh god, why hasn't Gox posted an update yet?

My recommendation to you, don't feed the trolls, and try to talk sense into those who can have sense talken into them.

Sorry Rampion, didn't see your post in between the wholesale trolling on here.

To answer your questions..

1) I dont know much about the SEPA withdrawals, sorry. I did my homework on Japanese domestic transfers because they affect me. However the SEPA withdrawals are coming from a Japanese bank, with the intermediary bank being in Poland. There are restrictions, in Japan, about these kind of transfers. Normally, not even major corporations come close to these. Understand that Gox is exactly what no one is prepared for. Endless transfers of all types and in all sizes. They do more transfers in one day than most companies do in a year. The restrictions were loose until the phenomena that is Gox comes into the picture. Gox is the very reason such restrictions were put in place; to prevent sketchy transfers. You may find your bitcoin tinkerings innocent, but the bank sees a zillion transfers from a pseudonymous currency platform from a million people like you, or maybe not like you, maybe they really are criminals. But how to tell? Everyone's alarm bells are going off. Every once in a while, a transfer that people CAN connect to SIlk Road or whatnot comes up, how do you think the banks feel? They are supposed to be profiting off all these transfers but here law enforcement from multiple countries comes knocking. Which is why Mizuho stopped banking for them. You probably didn't know that if you weren't using domestic transfers. Well, they started banking through Japan Net Bank, but recently they changed branches within that bank as well. Why do you think that is? Banks only touch Gox to get a taste of the money; but then they realize its poison and cut off all ties, one bank branch at a time if need be.

When you work with bitcoin you realize just how SLOW the regular banking system is. And regulated. There are RULES, no shit! And about other exchanges... Um you mean the ones whose CEOs are unnamed and are located in Eastern European countries? I dunno much about others except Bitstamp, but if I recall, money coming out of them also takes time for processing. They aren't backlogged, okay. They don't operate in a country that cares much about money laundering, either.

You can view the regulation as a good thing or a bad thing. I see it as good personally, because I'm not into bitcoin to buy drugs. I think legitimacy is important. MtGox is TRYING to be legitimate. They don't HAVE to cooperate with governments outside of Japan, right? But they do. That's because even if Mark isn't a very good coder, he knows legitimacy is necessary for bitcoins widespread adoption and survival.

One more note about SEPAs. Banking in Japan is only on weekdays, and no holidays. So "6 weeks" is too vague. Use business days and keep in mind Japan, intermediary bank locations, and the terminus bank ALL have different banking days/holidays. Included in your 6 weeks are many days which are not any exchanges fault. Use business days and everything will make a lot more sense to you, promise.

2) The reporting I was referring to is affected by deposits going into US individual bank accounts. They are not limited to just bitcoin exchanges. Any time an individual receives a large wire transfer, banks do an obligatory reporting to (I forget which regulatory body atm) FinCen or one of those. Again, keep in mind that before bitcoin exchanges, there was a certain number of these for any given bank, and then volume increased considerably as people began looping large sums though bitcoin exchanges to arb off Gox. It seems simple to you, but from the outside no one can tell arbing from money laundering! And either way the reports are obligatory. Imagine some bankers face when he signs up some innocuous new company for a new relationship with them, and suddenly this company causes such reporting to increase tenfold. They have to pay a guy to do this checking. And maybe the guy is saying, "I have no idea where this cash is coming from, we can't keep track of it all and we are gonna have law enforcement on us like flies."

There could be similar reporting in other countries but again, not my forte. Either way, its not secret that MtGox is cooperating with American law enforcement and regulation in the hopes of getting a foothold back in America. This is why KYC/AML has been instituted to even withdraw bitcoins.

However its much easier to deposit money into Gox because KYC/AML has already been done by banks on their customers. In my case, I use JNB, and the transaction is quite literally instant, from making the transfer online, to it showing up in Gox. Thats because JNB is Gox's bank, and since in this situation there is no friction, the wonders of Japanese technological innovation get to take hold.. voila. Now I suppose if I tried to make 8000 transfers out of my account, there would be a problem; but I'm not. There are no limits for receiving transfers, only sending. And that makes sense; its all thats necessary to track the money, you don't need to report the transfer twice.

I know it seems ridiculous to many people, and probably some of the people I think are trolls actually BELIEVE Gox is busy stealing their money- because they are across the globe, they are helpless and feel the FUD. But I've been here for five years now, and had my mind blown countless times by pointless rules which must be obeyed unquestioningly. I could tell you stories but would go off-thread. Its frustrating and ridiculous. Suffice it to say, one single company (Gox) pressing a hundred different little rules to the max doesn't impress the Japanese government. The regulatory bodies/banks involved aren't thinking, "man maybe we should change some of this to streamline it, make it better, make a buck or two but still keep it safe." No, no. Haha. No, they are thinking, "what is this silly foreigner trying to do? He comes in everyday with a stack of transfers, and every day bugs us to process more and more... but the rules are the rules. Oh hey, its lunch time." That's right. They don't give a shit. They don't read the FUD on this thread, and if they did, they'd probably be even less inclined to help.


You are dealing with a company in Japan. This is not Slovenia. On the upside, MtGox has the potential to be a legitimate instutition like one in America might be if regulation goes through and someone creates a US exchange. Mark doesn't care about losing business now because he wants the longterm business that being a real company will provide. Sometimes basic things (like knowing who the CEO is!) is important. Right now all these speculators care about it getting their money as fast as possible. But to a company that wants to survive bitcoins childhood, there are real-world problems to deal with. Like laws.

For the record, this post is somewhat devil's advocate. I don't know what Mark is thinking. But in general I see a lot of people talking about Gox when they know nothing about Japan and how it works, and blaming Gox/Mark when they should actually be blaming this bureaucratic country. I've posted about using business days and not 'its been 5 weeks' as a measure of time for the past month, no one has done so. You aren't helping anyone by lacking clarity, it only makes people suspect you are a troll by adding to the FUD. If people used banking days, they'd realize that you can predict your withdrawal fairly accurately, domestic or SEPA. You just need to know how the system works.

http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/mtgox/btcjpy  (pan out to 2hr or so)

There is more selling than buying, but there is still a lot of buying. And the chart doesnt show nationality of seller, though I'd say given the advantage of selling for JPY through Gox, any Japanese person is using Gox to withdraw and not any other service (because all other services have fees and delays to transfer to Japan whereas Gox is relatively simple, currently standing at 14 business days delay).

But again, you'd expect it to be more one-sided. I'd imagine that EVERYONE's btcs are being sold at Gox, sir. Not particularly the Japanese's, beyond the fact its currently the currency with the shortest withdrawal time.


The banking limits aren't unbelievable- if you live in Japan. Its standard bureaucracy. And the 5% is likely not a withdrawal at all, but a fiat to fiat transfer through a regular bank which charges them for it (though there is obviously a percentage in it for them as well). And when a bank is forced to submit reports on incoming transfers over $10k USD (in the US) to regulatory agencies, they also aren't allowed to tell the customer they are doing so (this is a fact). So EVERYTHING is a delay EVERYWHERE.

Also, about the numbers not lying, you pretty much answered that yourself. The arb gap would close- except no one has the capital to close that gap and funds are stuck in limbo for weeks. I was arbing as well (but successfully unlike you apparently), but only got to do it a few times before this shitstorm came up. Que sera sera.


They can't legally arb themselves, and obviously they didn't (much?) otherwise there wouldnt be a gap. So... oh wait I just got trolled

Yeah, sorry.

In Japan, when someone does something where they don't want to be recognized, one typically wears a hood and medical facemask (and maybe sunglasses for a 'total sketch' look). Even without the glasses though, this makes one tough to pick out. Medical facemasks are worn regularly in Japan by people of all ages; high population density makes cold/flu spread very easily. There is much controversy as to whether this is in anyway effective but people do it anyway. So, wearing a mask hides your identity pretty well, but it's socially acceptable. Putting a hood up on top of that though, crosses some vague line in the Japanese mind. Haha thats really the only way I can describe it.

Hoodies are pretty popular here. I've never seen anyone use the hood barring a serious snowstorm. Its fashionable, but people dont put them up, unless they are committing a crime. Google 'downtown tokyo in winter'. You'll see facemasks but no hoods.

Anyhow Japan functions largely on image alone, so I was just pointing out that these guys look very sketchy dressed like that, even if its not their intention.

Oh and, it being Tokyo, it hit 9 deg C today. Its not that cold here.

the main advantage to JNB is that its open 24hours and online... so you can do it from your armchair.

however, interesting to know other banks also doing fast deposits.

unfortunately, gox's burning of banks is quite worrisome. while my bet is that they are solvent, once btc withdrawals open back up, im getting out of there for a while. they are continuously saying "we are building new relationships with such and such bank" and that generally means other banks stopped taking their business.... not a good sign.

i couldnt bear to watch the whole 90 minutes thats posted on that website, but from what i can see... very ineffective. some token reporters that were headed to gox anyway, ALL english speakers.

is one guy handing out beers? and one dude is actually wearing google glass? so what, their IQs average out to like... 60?

embarassing.

also sitting around with their hoodies up in japan looks super sketchy. they failed to get their message across to everyone "irl", including gox. so in short this was a lame reddit stunt.

some japanese people know about bitcoin. the bitcoin community here is mostly western, however (read white). also people that live here, who know how japan works, read the half-baked conspiracy theories on this thread, and recognizing them for what they are, dont feed the trolls, and just quietly wait, holding onto their goxcoins.

i have btc in gox. ive gone in more since the drop. why? because i recognize the difference between risk and perception of risk. people are stupid. they think this thread has valuable information. unfortunately, sturle was right, this thread has gone increasingly downhill as it has gained popularity. more unformation is all thats left.

the only thing im really concerned about is the idea that the yakuza pulled off some kind of extortion or heist. one look at mark... nope. incompetent yes, malicious, no. but the incompetence (and lack of security at the medio bldg) may be the security problem they referred to in their update.

if his security concern was some white people standing in front of his building, then im REALLY NOT worried. he's just a poof then, and we are merely waiting for him to take his time and hen-peck some coding lines into the goxmachine.

oh and, to answer your last question, japanese people generally dont have much english ability. they stick to 2chan, you can threads on bitcoin (in japanese) there. the japanese-speaking thread on this website is basically dead (just a few of us weeaboos stop and blurb something in hiragana) id wager a guess though that of all the residents of japan who have accts at gox, the majority of them are expats. bitcoin is still very much an english-speaking phenomenon.

touche, salesman...

no. go do your homework, or at least look at other threads.

their old building has gated security. the medio building only has a front desk with an OL.

i cant agree with that. Gox took up four of eight floors. and as pointed out, the demonstrations werent demonstrations at all.

they are taking in a million USD a month, thats now, with their reduced market share. there rent is miniscule. i linked their rents in the main bitching thread. rent doesnt touch their monthly income. they cant just move in a day either, they must have had both offices the whole time.

but why am i even responding to you trolls?

http://www.tokyoapartments.jp/serviced-offices/Cross-Office-Shibuya-Medio+10.html
http://www.tokyoapartments.jp/serviced-offices/Executive-Center-Shibuya+4.html

the rooms and rates are probably inaccurate but id expect whatever they are paying for, its certainly MORE than the combined 9000 USD a month listed for those two office spaces.
 yeah okay so i admit... small potatoes. these kind of websites tend to hide hidden fees but honestly even if they paid 6 months up front, thats still tiddlywinks for mtgox.

i can only imagine they moved back for the IC card/gated security, as they said in their update.