Nobody releases audited numbers, so you don't know.

In theory, running a large Bitcoin exchange should be reliably profitable. In practice, over half of all Bitcoin exchanges have gone bust.

There's an enormous temptation in financial services companies to speculate with the customer's money. This was a major cause of the 2008 financial collapse. In the Bitcoin world, with no audits, it's probably common.

Exactly. This is a zero-sum game and needs a constant supply of new suckers.

The prices on Mt. Gox have been meaningless for months. Nobody could get dollars or euros out in large amounts.

Amusingly, more suckers people are now noticing that the Mt. Gox price is fake, because it's now lower than the other exchanges.

Wrong. As I've pointed out before, if the US imposed some restriction on money transfers for Mt. Gox, it would affect transfers from the US into Mt. Gox. That never happened. Somehow, all of Mt. Gox's money transfer restrictions are always on the withdrawal side, never the deposit side.

It's a scam. This was obvious back in June, with the "two week hiatus" on withdrawals.

The other alternative is to become a SEC-registered broker/dealer. That's national. Every stockbroker has to do that.

There are exams, audits, insurance, and capital requirements, but for a legit exchange, not something someone is running out of their parents basement, it's the way to go.

So what happens on Monday morning?

There were. Most of them took the money and ran.

Right. Bitcoin prices have been rather stable despite prohibition in Russia and China, and the collapse of Mt. Gox.

But how do you transfer ownership of a "Gox BTC?"

Here's a way this may play out on Monday.

Gox had 40,000 Bitcoins stuck in their withdrawal queue. On Monday, they will have zero, because they are cancelling withdrawals and crediting amounts back to customer accounts within Gox. That's already happening.

This allows them to begin a new round of jerking customers around. All their customers will have to resubmit their withdrawals. Gox then has lots of ways to stall them - they can request reverification of customer identity, claim the destination Bitcoin address is invalid, and such. They've done all of those things before. Then they can stall on moving transactions through states of "pending" to "processed", which they've also stalled on before. Then they can process the outgoing queue slowly, which they've done before.

Meanwhile, the usual Gox shills will be saying "everything is fine now", to discourage people from doing withdrawals. This may buy Gox another month. 

Video sucks. Opening with "All right, my name is" - come on.

The financial press is picking up this story:

"Bitcoin Price Plunges as Mt. Gox Exchange Halts Activity" - Bloomberg

"Bitcoin Price Drops as Mt. Gox Exchange Closes Indefinitely" - San Francisco Chronicle

"Mt. Gox Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals -- When Will it Reopen?" - Barrons

"Bitcoin Price Plummets 20% to Under $690 as Mt Gox Exchange ... " - International Business Times UK

"Bitcoin Plunges After Mt. Gox Blocks Withdrawals" - Reuters

"Bitcoin Price Falls After Exchange Halts Withdrawals" - Wall Street Journal

"Bitcoin Prices Fall: Mt. Gox Suspends Withdrawal Capability Citing Technical Issues" - International Business Times

"Bitcoin Plunges as Exchange Halts Withdrawals Due to Technical Problems" - Fox Business

"Bitcoin’s Oldest Exchange, Now in Shambles, Suspends Payouts" - Wired

Any questions?

Months old. Talks about "holiday shopping". And it's just some local station in Wisconsin.

Right. The key issue for US regulators is "are you handling other people's money?" If you're risking your own money, that's fine.

Bloomberg has a good writeup on the Mt Gox debacle. They look at this as they would look at a broker in trouble: "Bitcoin Price Plunges as Mt. Gox Exchange Halts Activity". "Mt. Gox ... promised an “update” -- not a reopening -- on Monday, Feb. 10, Japan time." "Trouble at Mt. Gox demonstrates “a clear need for a U.S.-based, regulated, compliant and trustworthy Bitcoin exchange."

In the real financial world, vague "technical difficulties" don't cut it as an excuse. The only justification for a shutdown is something like 9/11 or lower Manhattan being flooded. Even in both of those cases, everything was up and running within days, and customers could still get money out of brokerage accounts.

Remember Mt Gox's previous "temporary pause"?

Statement Regarding Temporary Hiatus on U.S. Dollar Withdrawals

TOKYO - JAPAN - June 20th, 2013
      
Over the past weeks Mt. Gox has experienced rising volumes of deposits and withdrawals from established and upcoming markets interested in Bitcoin. This increased volume has made it difficult for our bank to process the transactions smoothly and within a timely manner, which has created unnecessary delays for our global customers. This is especially so for those in the United States who are requesting wire transfer withdrawals from their accounts.
      
We are currently making improvements to process withdrawals of United States Dollar (USD) denominations, and as a result are temporarily suspending cash withdrawals of USD for the next two weeks.

Please be reassured that USD deposits and transfers to Mt. Gox will remain unaffected, as will deposits and withdrawals in other currencies, and we will be resuming USD withdrawals once the process is completed.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes our U.S. customers in the meantime, and look forward to resuming withdrawal service as well as debuting a dramatically improved trading engine which will be launching very soon.

Regards
Mt.Gox Co. Ltd Team.

Mt.Gox Contact press@mtgox.com

We've heard that before.

Mt. Gox press release, June 20, 2013: "We are ... temporarily suspending cash withdrawals of USD for the next two weeks."

Eight months later...

I can't claim fraud, having stated publicly that I thought Gox was a fraud.

If a victim of Madoff lost less than $500,000, they got it back from the Securities Investors Protection Fund insurance.  Above that, money has been slowly clawed back from Madoff's cronies who made big profits, and the bigger Madoff victims are getting about half their money back. Meanwhile, Mr. Madoff is Prisoner #61727-054 at Butner Federal Correctional Institution.

How is getting money back from Intersango working out for you? Or Tradehill? Or Mt. Gox?

Those regulations only apply to brokers and exchanges - people who handle other people's money. If you're trading for yourself, or mining Bitcoin, you don't need to qualify as a broker.

Over half of Bitcoin exchanges have failed, often disappearing with customer funds. That's what happens with no regulation.