Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[JorgeStolfi]

The wallets belonging to Gox that people have found so far (containing about 550k BTC) have not been touched since 2011.

Just to confuse the issue a bit more:

Consider my pet theory, namely that Mark sold those 750 kBTC of client deposits at (say) 15$ apiece off-market, when the market price was (say) 10$, without imagining that the price would increase so much, so fast.

The buyer of those coins would now be pressuring Mark to hide that deal, otherwise MtGOX clients may go to court to void the deal and recover those coins from him.  They may be floating all those rumors "I lost the keys", "the coins were stolen", "the coins were seized" --- to see which story the public will find more believable; or just to create confusion until people get bored and stop asking what really happened.

[jojo69]

or just to create confusion until people get bored and stop asking what really happened.

I'm already bored, let's move on

[derpinheimer]

It's becoming more and more clear that the coins haven't been stolen, they've just lost the keys lol. Once this is confirmed, should be very bullish.

I don't think that the loss of those coins, per se, would have any effect.  

Think of the exchanges as water tanks where water represents bitcoins in the market, and the water level is the inverse price (how many BTC one can buy with one dollar).

The tanks are connected by pipes at the bottom (coin withdrawals and deposits) so the hydrostatic principle (arbitrage) keeps the water level about the same in all tanks. If one pours more water into any tank (brings more coins to the market) the level in all tanks goes up (meaning the price goes down).  The opposite happens if one takes water out of one tank (buys coins and puts them in cold storage).

If the MtGOX theft did happen, then at some point in the past, someone siphoned most of the water out of the MtGOX tank to a private barrel.  I the keys were lost, most of the water in that tank leaked out and was permanetly lost.  In either case, Mark put some bricks into the tank (hid the theft) so that people would not notice the loss, and the water level was not affected.   Then a few days ago the pipes out of that tank  were closed (withdrawals were blocked),  and the tank was disconnected and removed it from the system.   That would not affect the water level in the other tanks either.

If the theft happened, and the thief then dumped the water in other tanks (sold the coins in other markets), then there was indeed a net rise in the water level (a fall in market price); but that is past history.  

We may expect an effect only if the coins were stolen but have not been not sold yet EDIT: and are sold now.

(This analogy is imperfect because it does not model the money flows, but hopefully it is enough to argue the point.)

I am talking about a case in which the private keys have been lost, in which case 750k BTC has been taken out of the total money supply. If they have been stolen (but the keys are still known) it shouldn't have much of an affect.

If the keys are lost, it brings up an argument to fork the block chain, and change the code to manually recover the money. To a new address. A lot of people would support it. (and many would be against)... talk about polarising the Bitcoin community.

It won't work. Without the private key, how Mark could prove those are really gox's coins?

Not just that. You'd try to open pandora's box. I highly doubt the devs would ever put that into a protocol update.
And even if they did at least a majority of miners would then have to move to that change.
Even attempting this would destroy bitcoin

Can you expand on this? I dont understand how it would damage anything.

I mean, assuming we KNOW these 500k lost coins were Gox, why cant they be restored if the community supports it?

How do you KNOW? Who will JUDGE?

Please leave the bitcoin world and go back to your local bank. It's much "safer".

Are you an idiot or something? I asked a simple question with assumptions. Those assumptions are not the focus of the post. Absolute imbecile.

[joehal]

To all the users with large holdings in mtgox :

We have the chance to be joint owners in the best built exchange in the world. A trustless exchange (like the bitcoin protocol) led by 1 million users. Completely transparent.

We will give a great example to the world. People will truly see then that bitcoin related things don't fail so easily. And all the news/media proclaiming the death of bitcoin because of GOX, will look like idiots.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=489949.0  (Voluntary Reorganization Best Option for Us All)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/MtGox-Recovery-Initiative/1394428424158424   - Like and spread the word

[Mota]

Not just that. You'd try to open pandora's box. I highly doubt the devs would ever put that into a protocol update.
And even if they did at least a majority of miners would then have to move to that change.

No miners would run the new code unless they got a cut of the coins.  That's all it would really take:  Offer 10% of the freed goxcoins as extra block rewards, and *ping* the coins are back.
The proof issue remains.  If it were directed by a court, I could see it happening.  Now *that* would be seriously dangerous to bitcoin:  An actual sovereign interference in the money supply.
We need to replace all the core devs with anonymous parties, untraceable by the court system.  Um.  That might not work out so well either.  Proof-of-Ethics protocol not yet implemented.

Never ever... I can understand people who have coins at gox would favor this, but like already said, this would undermine the fundamental priciples of Bitcoin. So what will be the next exception? I lost 1000coins back in the days, so why should gox people be compensated but me not? Ah btw, I don't can prove, that this address is mine...

The principle of bitcoin is decentralisation. Those adresses are proven to be owned by gox, since they deposited on them back in 2011 for a proof of liquidity.

If gox decides to appeal to the community it is up to the miners to decide if they want to fork or not. If you do not run a node, you have no say in the matter. If the community decides that it is better to recover 3% of the whole btc supply then they will do it, if not they won't. Easy as that. That's a decentralised majority vote and I would say it would be perfectly fitting in with the principles. If you don't want a fork, create your own node and run the old version. If 50% +1 nodes in the network join you, so be it.

That said, as long as they don't comment on it there is no way to know if those coins are lost or not.

[JorgeStolfi]

Jorge, are you aware that the UK economy used to be modelled by the Treasury by an actual water analog computer?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC_Computer

How cool! Thanks!

[Le Happy Merchant]

I'm already bored, let's move on

This. I mean I know it sucks, but I've been telling people to avoid gox for almost two years now.

Once we can get back to just watching the numbers tick up, I will be a lot happier.

[empowering]

The wallets belonging to Gox that people have found so far (containing about 550k BTC) have not been touched since 2011.

Just to confuse the issue a bit more:

Consider my pet theory, namely that Mark sold those 750 kBTC of client deposits at (say) 15$ apiece off-market, when the market price was (say) 10$, without imagining that the price would increase so much, so fast.

The buyer of those coins would now be pressuring Mark to hide that deal, otherwise MtGOX clients may go to court to void the deal and recover those coins from him.  They may be floating all those rumors "I lost the keys", "the coins were stolen", "the coins were seized" --- to see which story the public will find more believable; or just to create confusion until people get bored and stop asking what really happened.

Do they have a lot of Unicorns in Brazil? 

[JorgeStolfi]

I am talking about a case in which the private keys have been lost, in which case 750k BTC has been taken out of the total money supply. If they have been stolen (but the keys are still known) it shouldn't have much of an affect.

I did consider that case, I think it makes no difference:

If the MtGOX theft did happen, then at some point in the past, someone siphoned most of the water out of the MtGOX tank to a private barrel.  I the keys were lost, most of the water in that tank leaked out and was permanetly lost.  In either case, Mark put some bricks into the tank (hid the theft) so that people would not notice the loss, and the water level was not affected.

Think of losing the keys as a theft by the Devil (or by God). 

[soullyG]

Reddit thread on Goxcoin speculation here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/1z2xo5/speculation_the_us_government_has_control_of_goxs/

[JorgeStolfi]

Do they have a lot of Unicorns in Brazil? 

We have something much more interesting than a stupid semi-cow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saci_%28Brazilian_folklore%29

[KeyserSoze]

...a Frenchman who has a Frenchman roommate...

We get it already, you want to gay bash him. Certainly there are enough actual crimes he's committed for you to pursue him down those avenues.

[raid_n]

Can you expand on this? I dont understand how it would damage anything.

I mean, assuming we KNOW these 500k lost coins were Gox, why cant they be restored if the community supports it?

In essence it would break trust.
You trust that only 21 million coins will come into existence.
Forking bitcoin to change funds in any way would immediately break the trust that that what you own is actually yours.

Who is to guarantee that this change is a one time thing?
Who is to guarantee that no government gets access to unlimited coins?

Btw forking bitcoin is essentially like making an altcoin out of it.
Only one of the forks can be the "real" bitcoin. This is not to say that both can't survive.
But if such a major change were to be put through you can be certain that we'd end up with two bitcoins and
this would break just about all trust

[JorgeStolfi]

I see unicorns. All the time.

https://www.google.com.br/search?q=%22alleged+theft%22+%22cover+up%22

[empowering]

I see unicorns. All the time.

https://www.google.com.br/search?q=%22alleged+theft%22+%22cover+up%22

I am sure you do... who else would spend so much time on the Voynich manuscript other than a man that likes a mystery.

[fluidjax]

 I'm almost sorry I brought up the Karpeles Fork idea, but it is an interesting question, and shouldn't be swept under the carpet. I personally am completely against the idea. But the danger comes as was mentioned previously in offering pool operators/miners a bounty for running the forked code. It could be argued that the Gox event is so significant in size 750k that an exception in some peoples mind could be made. What is the price of the miners... 50%? The next 500 blocks found running the modified code each receive a bonus 750BTC per block found.... Very scary

As I said I am against this... Just putting it up for discussion.

[Chang Hum]

Wow I'm really bullish on Goxbtc at the moment I think once this latest news gets widespread I can really see the price rallying back to .33 in the next 12 hours!

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[FTWbitcoinFTW]

Wow I'm really bullish on Goxbtc at the moment I think once this latest news gets widespread I can really see the price rallying back to .33 in the next 12 hours!

Let me guess, you break even if it's 0.33
I feel your pain bro, sorry

[empowering]

I initially thought we were seeing a takeover or sell out from MK, and maybe that is still the case... but the more I think about it the more I wonder if
the guberment have their tricky paws on this...

oh look another Unicorn...