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Since MtGox declared bankruptcy I suppose we can't declare a loss on a US tax return until next year. Nice that Coinbase was good and stable for a few days, $588-$580 around the time of the bankruptcy court session. It looks like MrGox is claiming a basis value for the missing btc rather than market value. Perhaps the new US tax code Ponzi scheme provision will be applicable after he answers the federal subpoena but again that would be for next years taxes.
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So, what's the safest future for MrGox? Indictment and immediate remand on LI to protect from possible assassins? Three months in lockup while it's sorted out would keep him safe. But he might then need a phalanx of massive bodyguards surrounding him for his next what 60 years?
Keeping him safe from not only irate investors but how about obscure kill-for-hire that might turn up in the bitcoin investigation. Or other criminal enterprises that turned to bitcoin for its crypto-id only to find they've had a light focused on their business. Those unhappy customers won't be very forgiving.
If you could buy murder for dollars it's probably been done for bitcoin.
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There is no such thing as "fixing private keys". Private keys are simply random 256 bit numbers. You either have them or you don't.
If MtGox either
a) doesn't have the private keys for the coins in their wallet
or
b) they have the private keys but the coins have been moved (given to attackers, stolen years ago in prior hacks, embezzled)
there is nothing short of a hard fork to mint new coins for MtGox that anyone can do.
Please read: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1z8fmc/mtgox_private_key_related_coin_loss_a_explanation/Yeah I read it an it is utter nonsense written by someone who doesn't understand that private keys are random and addresses are derived from those private keys. Private key a is a random 256 bit number. Using ECDSA and priv_key a produces pubkey A which is hashed and cheksumed to form address AA. A proper wallet would record "a" and "AA". If MtGox's custom wallet was broken such that instead of producing address AA they produced address BB there is no way to find private key b from address BB. The coins are now at "BB" which has an unknown key and they were never sent to "AA" which is the address for the key MtGox has. The linked post is just a theory and if right (MtGox doesn't have the private keys from the addresses containing 800,000 BTC) then those coins are "gone" forever*. If you could "recover" those coins then it wouldn't really matter because Bitcoin is completely broken and worthless. * Well at least until the cryptographic primitives are weakened by cryptanalysis to make a brute force attack possible which could be 0 to infinite years from now. Advanced math is not my strongpoint, but what you say is what I have understood as well. In truth, I don't believe the keys are missing or that Gox was hacked. I think somebody on the inside stole it. I have strong (but unproven) suspicions of Mark Karpeles himself, since NOBODY in charge of a business would fail to note a monetary hemorrhage of that magnitude. Hell, when I was an assistant manager, I'd redo the numbers ten times to find five bucks. I was in charge of a few thousand dollars, not a King's Ransom. The whole thing stinks of fish. I empathize. Up in NY not finding work in my field I worked as a cashier in a typically busy LI supermarket. Not like down south here where cashiers casually scan items at a snails pace, long lines, loaded carts, we'd have to move products across the scanner very, very quickly and with accuracy. Counting out at night, EXACT receipts were required. When a nickel was short there was hell to pay. You'd be in a small closet with a window to the managers cubical and after a long day on one's feet, to be getting a blast bile and instructions to recount the draw repeatedly ain't fun. So, there's almost a half billion dollars worth of bitcoins missing. And he's 'sorry about that'. He should offer a reward for information leading to trial and conviction as well as btc return. He's not going to do that if he's the guilty party. |
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The stolen coins would be sold all over the world and it would be very difficult to trace down that where have his coins gone. it's not possible to get the stolen coins back.
Unless the 744408 btc + 2000 btc, were stolen by a single entity. If a botnet theft then those coins would sent to how many addresses? I think there's a problem for the thief of what to do with all those bitcoins. How many bank accounts would the thief need to cash out inconspicuously? Unless they were stolen by some huge shady gambling group with a propensity for breaking legs of anyone discomforting it. If if was some genius kid from Silicone Valley he likely chatted about an early exploit getting a few coins. Why hasn't a sizable reward been offered for the return of the coins? A reward could tempt a confederate of the thief to give him up. |
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KnC needs to put up a sign... BUY at your OWN RISK! As refunds may not be turned in the same currency your product was purchased in.  on that note is it true that the 3rd batch of knc miners (the ones they are selling now) don't have a refund? somehow i can't seem to get an answer to this (or it is obviouse someplace and i read over it) thanks Searing If every thing goes to plan then I can see them saying no to refunds, but if miners change from physical to virtual or there is a delay in production then they cannot/should not refuse a refund. I really couldn't care if they say 'no refunds' in the terms, if they can't produce in a timely manner then they have to refund if they like it or not. I might be delusional but this is how I see it. Delusional? What, did you lose too much weight too quickly? How. My dreadmill may keep me healthy but doesn't really address the midrift weight of insulin resistance. Maybe I should get a big blue ball for sitting on at my desk. what   Sorry. That was my attempt at a light joke. Saw three photos of Karpeles, overweight on the big blue ball, the photo of him declaring bankruptcy, and a third taken sometime between the two where he seems actually thin. It would appear he lost a lot of weight quickly then put some back on. Almost any effective fast weight loss scheme causes insomnia and an extended period of insomnia can cause delusional thinking. |
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KnC needs to put up a sign... BUY at your OWN RISK! As refunds may not be turned in the same currency your product was purchased in. on that note is it true that the 3rd batch of knc miners (the ones they are selling now) don't have a refund? somehow i can't seem to get an answer to this (or it is obviouse someplace and i read over it) thanks Searing If every thing goes to plan then I can see them saying no to refunds, but if miners change from physical to virtual or there is a delay in production then they cannot/should not refuse a refund. I really couldn't care if they say 'no refunds' in the terms, if they can't produce in a timely manner then they have to refund if they like it or not. I might be delusional but this is how I see it. Delusional? What, did you lose too much weight too quickly? How. My dreadmill may keep me healthy but doesn't really address the midrift weight of insulin resistance. Maybe I should get a big blue ball for sitting on at my desk. |
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Been away for a while. I am confused. Why do ppl want a btc refund? Take cash and buy more btc than you had before. Hasn't spot been mostly $800-1000 during most of the Neptune pre-order period?
When BTC turn into cash its a taxable event. When more than $10k gets transferred into your account in the U.S. it fires off a red flag to the IRS That is why KNC should refund back in the form it was paid in. But they are doing the opposite so that they can have credit for refunding in fiat. The more they have in BTC and the less they have in fiat the better they are too (less taxable events) Bad news. It was a taxable event when you PURCHASED the miner, NOT when you refunded it. Even if you keep your order, it's still taxable There are tax provisions for buying an investment that for some reason becomes delayed and then isn't taxable until after the delay which, by the way I read it, would apply to buying the Neptune in 2013 then getting the refund in 2014. Haven't finished reading the taxes booklets yet (one here 284 pages) but I'm guessing a 2013 form 1099-(one or another of the 1099's) or perhaps f8949. Never having done the long form before it looks like one is suppose to preemptively file like an employer withholding taxes and should have filed last year. Can't use the downloadable forms in these cases as they need barcodes. The 1040 is for 2013. Mail order request of any of the 1099's come dated 2014 so I expect I'll need specifically request mail-order 1099's or f8949's and file the few bitcoin cash-in's or barters on 2013 forms and the Neptune refund on a 2014 form. If they get back that this isn't allowed, apparently one may make post-dated IRA contributions so that will mitigate the 2013 tax liability. |
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So, Karpeles took depositors' money and bought www.gox.com before he declared bankruptcy. Wouldn't that be owned by www.mtgox.com and be inaccessible since the bankruptcy? Or would he expect to open a Bitcoin exchange claiming the best security money can buy. But what happens to the accounts with btc balances on www.mtgox.com? Are we to be asked with fanfare to come join the new enterprise while uncompensated for the money/assets we put in trust to him at www.mtgox.com? He must be delusional. Perhaps haldol is necessary. |
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You really also shouldn't be adding your 2 cents to this forum unless you have an order or own a KnC miner as your speculation doesn't mean anything to the rest of Neptune and or Knc owners. That's the same as saying you can't comment on the government if you haven't been in government, or you can't comment on killing chickens if you haven't killed a chicken. Really? The more diverse viewpoints the better. Let open discussion persuade or dissuade, as the case may be. well if we're going to go off topic, lets do democrats versus republicans is crap there's only the government official/employee party and the rest of us. |
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How would one reply to a message that goes something like this: You lost a million of my dollars. Come here.
It probably wouldn't help much to tell the guy "My accounting department tells me those bitcoins are only valued at $160." while the market says between $500 & $600.
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I'd ask for KNC to provide us updates but, I don't think many folks here care that much anymore (I don't), and we know KNC won't provide them anyhow.
We shall see, but the thought that we essentially provided an interest free loan is infuriating. And that they flat out lied twice, and never answered for it, when a vendor who is active on bitcointalk..disappears, questions should be raised. #1 Their fairness program, not building or selling any "new" products for Q1, but instead mining themselves with all the "new" product they've been creating, proof see video and their known hashrate, essentially, they sold products for Q1, to themselves, at no cost. Actually worse, product "we" previous customers paid for, with the capital we provided based on good faith. #2 Delivering a 22nm miner by Q2, how they try to bypass this completely without actually being sued, probably not, but I think it is clear with Plan B, they're gonna do it their way. Which really isn't influenced by anyone on this board.. the machine is in process now. Watch if Bitcoin's price falls anymore.. "Exclusive used modules now for sale".. what a joke. And don't fall for it people! If and when you become part of their business model again.. That view it was an unfair interest free loan doesn't hold water as far as I'm concerned. Their fair refund has prevented my Bitcoin adventure from being a disaster in view of the MtGox debacle. And my miner runs great, albeit suffering from the network hashrate. So, all in all, thank you KnC. |
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Malice or not, when/if subponas/appearance tickets arrive from Medellín, Bangkok and Shanghi, they might not allow power of attorney representation.
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Perhaps in retrospect he found that attempted pose as an innocent playful geek, the sitting on a blue ball photo, was seriously embarrassing. His inner Walter Mitty then took him to dark places at which point he started imagining himself as engaging in a theft that would rank among history's greatest.
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No offer of any kind of reward or finders fee for information that results in the return of the stolen Bitcoins? That and the delay on disclosure kind of hints at an inside job.
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Rebuttal was already posted: The Feds recently subpoened Mt.Gox to force them to retain trading records, so the chain of ownership will be known to law enforcement.
You think it's a given that MtGox has detailed, accurate and long term trading records? From a company that managed to lose all but 2000BTC out of 750,000BTC (if the story is true) before they noticed and pulled the plug? Transaction records they probably have. Posing as upholding an ideal of secrecy they may be less than helpful to investigators though with that much money gone they probably should, help that is. Agreed it's odd it took so long to interrupt the outflow/loss. They must have been out of the office. I wonder how long it took to empty SR2 using the same technique. The theft aside, I wonder how many complaints they had about double-spending/double-sending due to lousy website software. I can see how that could be costly. Maybe they tried to placate some users by reimbursing loss due to a double-send that resulted from the lousy website software but that would not have been any kind of an automatic refund and perhaps they hoped to cajole the recipients of the double-sends to return the Bitcoins. Interesting article earlier today comparing early Paypal experiences/ripoffs to MtGox difficulties. And my first use of mid-1990's banking software which somehow managed to wipe out my hard drive. I note the banks got better at it. Why didn't MtGox effectively spend more money on software/hardware? Hundreds of millions of dollars entrusted to them and they didn't keep up the infrastructure? Bet money was readily spent on best travel, best hotels and the like. |
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I'm not sure about how that double-payout, the transaction malleability error, was made to work. I recall a slow response on MtGox when making a 3btc withdrawal around the second week of November 2013. The transfer didn't seem to go thru and I hit the button a second time and ended up sending 6 btc but the 6 btc was deducted from my balance, not 3btc. So, that wasn't the fault. Sloppy true but there was no wrongful gain or loss.
Okay, I can see how this could be a problem if I was sending those 3btc to someone else. I was unsure of the exact amount of a purchase and sent the 3 btc to another account where I could sign a message if necessary.
If I had been sending the 3 btc to someone else I would have ended up sending them 6 btc instead but of course 6 btc would be deducted from my account. I don't see how 7744408 btc could be mis-sent this way.
Edit: My mistake, 744,408 Bitcoins.
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Wonder what will be happening at the Nassau County Coliseum when he's in town to answer the subpoena right across the street there.
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Too bad MtGox didn't insure its accounts against theft with Lloyds of London.
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If the implication that South American drug lords move money to their accounts using Bitcoin is true, then they must have experienced Bitcoin theft and perhaps have somewhat successful recovery methods, some kind of Jose Ray Donovan IT Corp. Maybe MtGox should look for them before they come looking for MtGox. Second largest heist in recorded history will get some kind of action.
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Can every satoshi of those missing Bitcoins be traced? I'd bet that would be a yes.
Why do you believe that to be so? A bitcoin isn't a thing, and it doesn't have a unique identifier. The general use over time of Bitcoin it it's own mixing service; by the time any court orders are issued to seize the Bitcoins withdrawn from Gox they most likely won't just be sitting around in some wallet. They'll be distributed in small fractions in a huge number of wallets of a correspondingly large number of people. Again, even if you came up with enough consensus to get the Bitcoin protocol changed to allow the invalidation of coins and reissuing those sums to people who say they had them stolen, how do you decide what coins to take? Do you just based on a percentage of taint? What do you do when you successfully get your X Bitcoins taken back from people who had previously withdrawn them from Gox, and then they in turn have to sue you in Bitcoin Court because after all, most of them were probably just people who'd deposited in Gox and now are out their coins, same as you were. Besides the technical challenges, who do you propose runs this court that you want to get everyone to agree on? The US Government? The Japanese? The Bitcoin Foundation? Some kind of consensus voting through the blockchain? The biggest draw of Bitcoin is that there isn't a central despot who can unilaterally choose monetary policy. The 744,408 Bitcoins left via many one-of-a-doubled transaction so one or both of those illegal transactions point to an address that was controlled by computer, whether private or public, that left an identifying trail with regard to the date and time location and perhaps right down to the MAC address of the corresponding machine(s) and even if effected using TOR it would be a question of tracking that would be technically possible - caveat that's my opinion. Paragraph 2 - good ideas. Paragraph 3 -yes, the idea was suggested by the Japanese this morning. Their suggestion should be given more than typical weight given that perhaps the MtGox location in Japan and Bitcoin itself posed as a creation of a Japanese whether true or not both of which lent to MtGox a higher potential trust by depositors. I point to the quality of US automobiles versus Japanese automobiles as helping to form opinion. If MtGox was posed as developed and financed by a Wall Street broker or brokerage house the public trust of it would be quite different. |
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