MtGox withdrawal delays [Gathering]

[OhShei8e]

In the case of MtGOX's bitcoins, the question of future value is even less relevant -- because bitcoins are not unique works of art, but fungible commodities with a large market.  220'000 BTC is a lot bitcoins for one person to own or buy, but is still less than 2% of all bitcoins issued so far, and less than the volume traded in the exchanges in one day.   If those coins are auctioned for 37'000 ¥ apiece, the judge will not understand
why giving 37'000 ¥ to a former client is less fair than giving him 1 BTC.  And, frankly, neither do I.

Two percent is pretty huge for a currency with a fixed amount of money.

if I do not get my fair share, I never will touch one of these gox coins until they are not mixed in homoeopathic doses with normal Bitcoins.
This is my money, whatever anyone else believes. Otherwise, I would not consider Bitcoin as free money any longer but as a new form of fiat,
where the state controls everything essential.

A little fiat field trip: Even if it were possible, as a trader it's prohibited by law to me to reject certain monetary units of the legal currency of my country.
In my case (I'm located in Germany) this is the Euro. But for example, I don't have to accept Dollars, I could but it's not a liability for a trader.
In Germany I could say: I don't accept Dollar notes which have serial numbers which end with the letter "A" but I will accept any other Dollar note.
That's because the Dollar is no legal tender in Germany. In the US is inverted. No one have to accept Euro in the US.
In Japan it's the Yen which have to be accepted by everyone. But no Dollars and no Euros.

And in all countries, no one, and I mean absolutely no one, can dictate to anyone to accept special units of Bitcoins.
Bitcoin is not a legal tender of any county.
 
Fungibility is one of the main reasons why state currencies exist. For me fungibility is a source of the evil.
The money of honest people is worth more than the money from slave traders, drug traffickers and fraudsters, because they have earned it honestly.
Fungibility is destroying our society. And that's one of the reasons why I love Bitcoin, because there is no such state-imposed fungibility.
Also it's technically very easy to red list specific parts of the block chain. That's pretty cool. So I have nothing more to do with all those bad things.
And I don't have to accept money which was stolen from me previously. This protects me from bad feelings that I would otherwise have for the people
who have taken my money away. I love the people, but not their money or what they are doing. Many of us handle it well the other way around. Right?
I condemn no one who handles it differently, but I do it my way.

Whatever will happen, I can live with each outcome. To blacklist those coins satisfied me as much as I would get my money back.
You can call me a stubborn idiot if you like but that is my last word on it. And that's the last thing I say on the subject for the time being.

[JorgeStolfi]

You can call me a stubborn idiot if you like but that is my last word on it. And that's the last thing I say on the subject for the time being.

I did not intend to call you anything; apologies if it sounded that way.  However, I got this impression that you are not very familiar with how the judicial system works.

I am not a lawyer either, but at work I have had to follow legal proceedings in various occasions, served as juror a few times, and even sued someone once (a lawyer, in fact -- and, amazingly, I won).  Sure, most of those experiences were here in Brazil, where the laws and legal standards are different from those of Japan; but the general principles that underlie the legal system seem to be the same (not surprisingly, since Brazil and japan both copied a lot of their government structures from the US).  In particular, everywhere it is the case that one must retain a lawyer to interact with the courts.  A court of law is totally unlike a private company, and you cannot demand or argue with a judge (or his appointed trustee) like you would with the manager of a bitcoin exchange.

Based on my limited experience, I would say that, if you wish to have any influence in the liquidation, you must absolutely hire a lawyer that understands the Japanese bankruptcy laws and precedents, ask him what can and cannot be done, and let him interact wth the trustee.   If you don't have the means or patience to do that, you should just wait for the trustee to figure out a plan that the judge approves, file your claims according to his instructions, and accept whatever you get from him.

[DrApricot]

You can call me a stubborn idiot if you like but that is my last word on it. And that's the last thing I say on the subject for the time being.

If you don't have the means or patience to do that, you should just wait for the trustee to figure out a plan that the judge approves, file your claims according to his instructions, and accept whatever you get from him.

This seems like rather pedestrian advice you are giving, and possibly even appropriate for the small business down the street which goes bankrupt, but does not take into consideration the uniqueness of this particular situation, which you apparently completely dismiss.

The issues of fraud in the Mt. Gox case have been swept under the carpet, and that's apparent for all to see by the awkward degree of secrecy surrounding the proceedings, as noted in Kolin's report. A wiser course of action is for depositors to remain ever-vigilant, and to register their concerns, rather than sit passively by and wait for their inevitable fleecing. semper vigilans!

[leopard2]

I cannot understand that it is not possible to put more pressure onto M.K. and other Gox employees to cooperate with the investigators - in the U.S. they could be heard as witnesses under obligation to tell the truth; also they could be jailed for contempt of court for not cooperating

Chances are that a lot of details would come to light once these people spend some time behind bars 

Is the Japanese legal system a toothless tiger, or is Mr. Kobayashi too friendly? Even if an outsider was stealing the coins, all the other information would then be credibly and without any gaps, show where in the process the coins were stolen.

Instead, the Gox bankruptcy looks like a foggy cloud where coins and money went in and out, mysteriously, and that stinks!

Pretty sure, in the U.S. the fog would have been cleared by now, M.K. would not be playing games with the FBI 

[JorgeStolfi]

I cannot understand that it is not possible to put more pressure onto M.K. and other Gox employees to cooperate with the investigators - in the U.S. they could be heard as witnesses under obligation to tell the truth; also they could be jailed for contempt of court for not cooperating

Pretty sure, in the U.S. the fog would have been cleared by now, M.K. would not be playing games with the FBI 

In the US you have the right refuse to say anything that could be used as proof against you.  (That constitutional amendment was intended to discourage the police from using torture to extract confessions from suspects, since such confessions are often bogus, and the police may end up torturing innocent people.  However, thanks to the CIA and TV, torture is now again fashionable in the US, so maybe they will amend the amendment soon...)

On the other hand, the Japanese police must already have interrogated Mark and other MtGOX managers and staff, for the investigation that Kobayashi requested.  But the police cannot be transparent while it is investigating a crime.  The findings will be published only after the investigation is closed, IF criminal charges are filed.  Then the relevant evidence and depositions will be attached to the case documents.

[DrApricot]

I cannot understand that it is not possible to put more pressure onto M.K. and other Gox employees to cooperate with the investigators - in the U.S. they could be heard as witnesses under obligation to tell the truth; also they could be jailed for contempt of court for not cooperating

Pretty sure, in the U.S. the fog would have been cleared by now, M.K. would not be playing games with the FBI 

On the other hand, the Japanese police must already have interrogated Mark and other MtGOX managers and staff, for the investigation that Kobayashi requested.  But the police cannot be transparent while it is investigating a crime.  The findings will be published only after the investigation is closed, IF criminal charges are filed.  Then the relevant evidence and depositions will be attached to the case documents.

Interviewing Mark could provide some very interesting information, but probably won't yield what happened to the missing $26 million in fiat bank deposits.

It's notable how Kraken will never be allowed to directly interview MK as part of their investigation, but rather is only allowed to pass their questions through Kobayashi to him. Similarly, Karpeles was not allowed to testify in Dallas last April. That's when Mt. Gox was pushed into liquidation so a trustee could be the only possible witness (never called). Mark himself has stated that he is subject to an NDA. Are they protecting the knowledge of what happened which he can reveal, or possibly that he doesn't even know what happened, and was set up? If the latter were the case, then the police should obviously cast a much wider net than merely the proprietor and employees of Mt. Gox.

[JorgeStolfi]

Similarly, Karpeles was not allowed to testify in Dallas last April. That's when Mt. Gox was pushed into liquidation so a trustee could be the only possible witness (never called). Mark himself has stated that he is subject to an NDA.

I don't recall that.  My recollection is that Mark refused to appear, with some weak excuses
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27032221
and eventually the lawsuit was called off by the plaintiffs (Greene and Lack) after they made a deal with Sunlot. 

"I am under a gag order from the FBI" is a good excuse to evade questions.  How do we know that such an order exists?  (Once you catch someone telling a straight-faced lie, you should not base any reasoning on anything he says or writes.)

[DrApricot]

Similarly, Karpeles was not allowed to testify in Dallas last April. That's when Mt. Gox was pushed into liquidation so a trustee could be the only possible witness (never called). Mark himself has stated that he is subject to an NDA.

I don't recall that.  My recollection is that Mark refused to appear, with some weak excuses
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27032221
and eventually the lawsuit was called off by the plaintiffs (Greene and Lack) after they made a deal with Sunlot.  

"I am under a gag order from the FBI" is a good excuse to evade questions.  How do we know that such an order exists?  (Once you catch someone telling a straight-faced lie, you should not base any reasoning on anything he says or writes.)

You are correct that MK didn't want to appear, and may have given some lame excuses, but the Dallas judge ordered him to appear. That's the point at which his attorneys, who had been advising him all along, went into overdrive and a liquidation ensued. How specifically, the liquidation phase was triggered, whether it was the judge's idea or Kobayashi's is unclear. Regardless, since Karpeles was no longer head of the company, but rather Kobayashi as trustee was, the latter was primed to become the new "foreign representative" in the Dallas proceedings, or else he could nominate someone for that role. See:

The related Chapter 15 case status conference that had been scheduled for April 24 in Dallas has been postponed to April 30 and it is a virtual certainty that a new foreign representative will be named in place of Mark Karpeles (whose deposition the American bankruptcy court previously had ordered). The new foreign representative could be Kobayashi or his designee to serve in that role. http://www.virtualcurrencyreport.com/2014/04/mt-gox-to-be-liquidated/

This is not an obscure point, but rather has been widely publicized. It was pretty clear that in no way was Mark to be allowed to testify in Dallas, whether he wanted to or not. There was even rumour that he could be arrested should he show up for the deposition.

[cafminer1]

Latest from MtGox

https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20141217_answers.pdf

[DrApricot]

Latest from MtGox

https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20141217_answers.pdf

....the amount of BTC managed by the bankruptcy estate was stated as “202,149.2273849003BTC” but it was a clerical mistake, and “202,149.2273849BTC” is the ” is the correct figure.

counting every last Satoshi!

[JorgeStolfi]

Latest from MtGox

https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20141217_answers.pdf

....the amount of BTC managed by the bankruptcy estate was stated as “202,149.2273849003BTC” but it was a clerical mistake, and “202,149.2273849BTC” is the ” is the correct figure.

counting every last Satoshi!

Someone stored the amount as a double-precision floating point number (which holds a little more than 15 significant digits), and printed it with 11 decimals after point, instead of 8.

[DrApricot]

Latest from MtGox

https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20141217_answers.pdf

....the amount of BTC managed by the bankruptcy estate was stated as “202,149.2273849003BTC” but it was a clerical mistake, and “202,149.2273849BTC” is the ” is the correct figure.

counting every last Satoshi!

Someone stored the amount as a double-precision floating point number (which holds a little more than 15 significant digits), and printed it with 11 decimals after point, instead of 8.

S @ # t  happens! Glad at least Kobayashi's trying to be accurate.

[bitcoinvest]

Someone in this case has to be accurate...
Did you all see the posts of Mark in his twitter account?
He tries to sell all the domains he has in order to pay back for his loans from MtGox i can understand
Police investigation, Kobayashi, Kraken support and of course now we are heading to 1 year from shut down and still nothing back to us!

Just waiting for the news of www.mtgox.com how can this be possible? ( i don't wait for an answer on that of course )
but i think police investigation with Mark and Kobayashi should have cleared the case within a month....
Of course i can imagine that Mark already hide whatever he could and now what? 1 year and we don't know if the coins ever existed or where are the coins now....

Let's see ! time will tell!

[OhShei8e]

Did you all see the posts of Mark in his twitter account?

No, but thanks for the hint.

He sells bitcoins.com too.

[JorgeStolfi]

we are heading to 1 year from shut down and still nothing back to us!

Bankruptcies in general take years to return money to creditors, and often return only a fraction of what is due (since a company goes bankrupt precisely becuse it has no hope of paying what it owes).  People should know that before they trust their money to a company that does not undergo a real audit each quarter (and no exchange actually does that).  

This bankruptcy is quite unusual and complicated, with tens of thousands of creditors scattered all over the world, millions of records in its database, and 500 million USD of funds that management can't or doesn't want to explain where they went, and may not even have existed.  For that reason the trustee asked, and was granted, extra time to collect and validate de claims; and he still seems to be quite lost about what to do.  (It doesn't help that most of the creditors do not know, and do not want to know,  what are the legal constraints that he must follow.)

but i think police investigation with Mark and Kobayashi should have cleared the case within a month....  Of course i can imagine that Mark already hide whatever he could and now what? 1 year and we don't know if the coins ever existed or where are the coins now....

No one knows what the police has already found.  That is normal, they are not expected to release any information until they have evidence that can stand in court (or conclude that they have no way to produce such evidence).

The database has been leaked, but the "crowd detectives" that have looked into it have not reached any useful conclusions either, in spite of their considerable technical expertise.  One problem is that most accounts remain anonymous, and thus may be fake, or may belong to the management, or to the thiefs.  Another problem is that the database was doctored or truncated to an unknown extent. (That is one thing that the trustee's investigatores have already concluded).  To get to the truth, the investigators need information from outside the database: they must subpoena bank records, interview people, get help from police forces in other countries...  All that will take much more than 1 month.

[freedombit]

The database has been leaked, but the "crowd detectives" that have looked into it have not reached any useful conclusions either, in spite of their considerable technical expertise.

I feel there is at least one huge-gaping conclusion that is very useful: More than two people have a list of the final Bitcoin addresses where the Bitcoin was last available before becoming "temporarily unavailable" and they have not released this information. This fact is a very important fact that we cannot forget.

To get to the truth, the investigators need information from outside the database: they must subpoena bank records, interview people, get help from police forces in other countries...  All that will take much more than 1 month.

What truth might they be seeking with all such information? They do not need any of that to know what addresses are currently holding the missing Bitcoin. The who will come out eventually. Every time that Bitcoin value switches hands, its another link that could lead to the original thief.

[bitcoinvest]

so let me undesrtand...

We are talking about database that has been modified etc....

In a company like that ( see the bitcoin movie how they entered the server room, such a security) they want us to believe they did not had back up of live server? i create websites and i take back up every hour! even if they erase the back up's i think there is way for the police to get them back.

But the main thing is like you said outside... where is the fiat?

by the way bitcoins.com is for sale by Mark long time ago... after the United States court stopped him from selling after a month he putted for sale like we see now with the other domains about 400 if i am right. Probably the owner wasn't MtGox but Tibbane on himself and he managed to put for sale again.

[Keyser Soze]

so let me undesrtand...

We are talking about database that has been modified etc....

In a company like that ( see the bitcoin movie how they entered the server room, such a security) they want us to believe they did not had back up of live server? i create websites and i take back up every hour! even if they erase the back up's i think there is way for the police to get them back.

I think the suggestion is that Mark intentionally altered the database and/or backups. Given the size of MtGox, I could imagine the difficulty of trying to find inaccuracies.

What truth might they be seeking with all such information? They do not need any of that to know what addresses are currently holding the missing Bitcoin. The who will come out eventually. Every time that Bitcoin value switches hands, its another link that could lead to the original thief.

If the MtGox database has been altered, it would certainly be very helpful for investigators to have outside information (from banks, clients, ect) to find and undo these alternations.

[JorgeStolfi]

This article, posted March 2014, is outdated about the alleged "hack", but has some interesting trivia about MtGOX:
http://www.wired.com/2014/03/bitcoin-exchange/

I wasn't aware that Jesse Powell, who founded Kraken, was a close friend of Karpelès and Ver; so much that he rushed to help them after MtGOX was hacked for the first time, in 2011.

[bitcoinvest]

This article, posted March 2014, is outdated about the alleged "hack", but has some interesting trivia about MtGOX:
http://www.wired.com/2014/03/bitcoin-exchange/

I wasn't aware that Jesse Powell, who founded Kraken, was a close friend of Karpelès and Ver; so much that he rushed to help them after MtGOX was hacked for the first time, in 2011.

I wasn't aware of this also and all this time day by day i search for news and updates for MtGox case...

So let me understand... Founder of Kraken Jesse Powell and Mark Karpeles are friends?
Jesse had helped him and now he helps also Kobayashi?

What is going on???