Make sure your voice is heard at the next MtGox creditor meeting

[sobriket]

Next week, the next MtGox creditor meeting is held.

We, a group of creditors, feel that Mr Kobayashi, the current court-appointed bankruptcy estate trustee, has failed to fulfil his fiduciary duties. This includes:

- failure to consult with creditors and the bitcoin community at large on the appointment of known bitcoin experts to aid in the ongoing investigation - instead resorting to consultants with no more than a faint acquaintance with the concept of bitcoin, who are charging hefty fees;
- failure to interact with interested (takeover) parties except under the protection of a highly restrictive self-denying non-disclosure agreement;
- maintenance of an inappropriately cosy and outrageously costly consulting relationship with Tibanne KK, the parent company of MtGox (with Tibanne regularly charging “consulting fees” in excess of USD 400,000 to the bankruptcy estate), while failing to recognize Tibanne, the former de facto operator of the MtGox bitcoin exchange, as a fully liable debtor in this bankruptcy debacle;
- failure to disclose the MtGox wallet addresses under the guise of protecting an “investigation” that is supposedly taking place;
- failure to even provide something as simple as a claims form to creditors after over 7 months of bankruptcy proceedings.

In summary, we feel that Mr Kobayashi, least to say, does not live up to expectations and needs to be replaced by someone more competent, or needs to be overseen by creditors’ representation. Moreover, we feel Kobayashi should disclose the MtGox wallet addresses to allow community investigative efforts.

Please register at mtgoxcreditors.org to allow us to build a strong case!

[borninvinsible]

Thank you for putting something meaningful up about this matter.

[DrApricot]

Add to your list,

* Failure to explain how Mt. Gox managed to lose $26 million in fiat, along with all the bitcoins supposedly missing.  Transaction malleability doesn't really satisfactorily explain the disappearance of either one.

[OhShei8e]

We (gox-self-help) have sent a letter to the Bankruptcy trustee to define our requirements.

English original:
https://wiki.olivere.de/goxwiki.ro/attachments/ClaimsGoxSelfHelp/Kobayashi_18Nov14.pdf

Japanese translation:
https://wiki.olivere.de/goxwiki.ro/attachments/ClaimsGoxSelfHelp/Kobayashi_18Nov14-jap.pdf

We are not asking that the Bankruptcy trustee resigns from his function.
Personally I'm not sure if things would be different with another trustee in bankruptcy.
But I can understand the frustration very well.

To join the gox-self-help mailing list you can send an email to:
gox-self-help-join@list.olivere.de
(You will receive a confirmation mail. Simply reply to this message, keeping the subject intact.)

[sobriket]

We don't argue that Kobayashi should be replaced under all circumstances, but that at least there should be more clarity, and some form of creditor oversight. The details of his actions and reasoning are so murky that it appears they're all at least ineffective, or at worst, counterproductive.

[rammy2k2]

good luck with this !

[OhShei8e]

We don't argue that Kobayashi should be replaced under all circumstances, but that at least there should be more clarity, and some form of creditor oversight. The details of his actions and reasoning are so murky that it appears they're all at least ineffective, or at worst, counterproductive.

I agree. But this is probably not uncommon in such cases. I think the problem here are the usual practice in bankruptcies, where attorneys and third parties gain profits at the expense of creditors.
Unfortunately that is the usual way. That was just one of the reasons why we switched to Bitcoin. However, it's still about Bitcoin. At least Gox still holds 200,000 of them. We prefer a simple distribution key for these coins:

"The remaining assets in Bitcoins should be distributed to depositors proportionately to their final Bitcoin balance (as seen on mtgox.com)."

I think, if we all stick together, we can at least enforce this point. But even that will be very hard and may mean that we have to blacklist coins which will embezzled from our point of view.
But blacklists can be ignored. So finally it's a decision of the community. If the community allows to auction these coins and pass us over, then we can not do anything.
Then the 200,000 coins are embezzled by attorneys and third parties like the remaining fiat. That's just the way it is.

Another question in this context is still where the stolen coins are ended up. But we will probably never find out this. Whoever was involved, they all remain silent and cover their tracks.

[DrApricot]

Another question in this context is still where the stolen coins are ended up. But we will probably never find out this. Whoever was involved, they all remain silent and cover their tracks.

If not hiding in plain sight, and hoping we don't notice.

[sobriket]

We don't argue that Kobayashi should be replaced under all circumstances, but that at least there should be more clarity, and some form of creditor oversight. The details of his actions and reasoning are so murky that it appears they're all at least ineffective, or at worst, counterproductive.

I agree. But this is probably not uncommon in such cases. I think the problem here are the usual practice in bankruptcies, where attorneys and third parties gain profits at the expense of creditors.
Unfortunately that is the usual way. That was just one of the reasons why we switched to Bitcoin. However, it's still about Bitcoin. At least Gox still holds 200,000 of them. We prefer a simple distribution key for these coins:

"The remaining assets in Bitcoins should be distributed to depositors proportionately to their final Bitcoin balance (as seen on mtgox.com)."

I think, if we all stick together, we can at least enforce this point. But even that will be very hard and may mean that we have to blacklist coins which will embezzled from our point of view.
But blacklists can be ignored. So finally it's a decision of the community. If the community allows to auction these coins and pass us over, then we can not do anything.
Then the 200,000 coins are embezzled by attorneys and third parties like the remaining fiat. That's just the way it is.

Another question in this context is still where the stolen coins are ended up. But we will probably never find out this. Whoever was involved, they all remain silent and cover their tracks.

I very much look forward to the next creditor meeting.

[Nrcewker]

Does MtGox really want to pay us back bitcoins? I doubt it and this meeting is just a delaying tactic indefinitely

[freedombit]

Next week, the next MtGox creditor meeting is held.
In summary, we feel that Mr Kobayashi, least to say, does not live up to expectations and needs to be replaced by someone more competent, or needs to be overseen by creditors’ representation. Moreover, we feel Kobayashi should disclose the MtGox wallet addresses to allow community investigative efforts.

Please register at mtgoxcreditors.org to allow us to build a strong case!

Bump: Thank you for the effort.

Individual noise here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=628191.0

[idee2013]

Bump.

[BitCoinNutJob]

Can someone at the meeting ask them can we have the dam 200k coins back at least FFS

[DrApricot]

Does MtGox really want to pay us back bitcoins? I doubt it and this meeting is just a delaying tactic indefinitely

You are probably on to something. Kobayashi seems like a cut-out to me, possibly even chosen merely because of his name. Kind of someone's idea of a sick joke. Doesn't the example of the Kobayashi Maru used to test aspiring Star Fleet officers sound kind of analogous to the situation with Mt. Gox? See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru
Nobody really knows what this guy is up to, if anything. His actions don't make a whole lot of sense though--such as hiring accounting and technology companies to handle the mess, while failing to recruit any bitcoin experts to assist.

Edit: Only today, I learned that Mr. Kobayashi has just hired bitcoin exchange, Kraken, to help him out with investigating Mt. Gox and to distribute what's left of the trapped coins. Ironically, Kraken, reportedly will not be allowed to speak directly to Mark Karpeles as part of their investigation, although they will be able to pose questions relayed through Kobayashi.

BTW, isn't Kraken supposed to be some kind of legendary sea monster? Bizarre!

[meadefreling]

Also keep in contact with this http://blog.kraken.com/post/103599171158/mt-gox-bankruptcy in order to have complete knowledge of what is going on.