MtGox withdrawal delays [Gathering]

[qxzn]

This article, posted March 2014, is outdated about the alleged "hack", but has some interesting trivia about MtGOX: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.

The article doesn't say or even imply that Powell was a close friend of Karpeles. What it says is:

After Mt. Gox was hacked for the first time in summer of 2011, a friend asked Powell to help out, and soon, the San Francisco entrepreneur found himself on a plane to Tokyo. After landing, he rushed to Shibuya station, where he was met by his friend, Roger Ver, one of the world’s biggest bitcoin supporters who just happened to live across the street from Mt. Gox.

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[DrApricot]

• "Secrecy is sprinkled over everything like an artificial sweetener to hide things we're not going to like, cover up poor progress, avoid answering awkward questions etc. The meetings are supposed to be about giving out information but the feeling is they're about conforming to the requirement for a meeting but  with the aim being to give away as little as possible."  --Kolin Burges, "November 26th 2014 MtGox Creditors' Meeting & Kraken Press Conference", http://www.mtgoxprotest.com/
• "Q4 Will not the address of bitcoins managed by MtGox be disclosed?
  A4 The police investigation into MtGox is currently being conducted. Since the investigative authorities request the trustee to carefully consider the disclosure of the address, disclosure of the address is withheld at this point and I will continue to consider its future disclosure.  --Nobuaki Kobayashi  "Answers to Questions, etc., at Second Creditor's Meeting", https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20141217_answers.pdf

This mushroom treatment is getting old!

[macsga]

/tinfoil hat on
Am I the only one here who thinks that the amount of 600k missing BTCs is FAR TOO BIG for buying every single one of them?  

/tinfoil hat off

[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This article, posted March 2014, is outdated about the alleged "hack", but has some interesting trivia about MtGOX: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.

The article doesn't say or even imply that Powell was a close friend of Karpeles. What it says is:

After Mt. Gox was hacked for the first time in summer of 2011, a friend asked Powell to help out, and soon, the San Francisco entrepreneur found himself on a plane to Tokyo. After landing, he rushed to Shibuya station, where he was met by his friend, Roger Ver, one of the world’s biggest bitcoin supporters who just happened to live across the street from Mt. Gox.

Thanks.  Indeed, I misread the article.

Still, Powell is good friend of Ver, who was a very good friend of Karpelès; and Powell had his hands in the system, which was later hacked in ways unknown ...

By the way, wasn't Ver one of MtGOX's most successful traders, according to the leaked database?

[bitcoinvest]

those info must be passed to Kobayiashi somehow

[bitcoinvest]

http://www.coindesk.com/safello-co-founder-moves-tokyo-start-new-bitcoin-security-firm/

what is going on with Tokyo? Are they going to clean MtGox mess?? is this is just my feeling??

[JorgeStolfi]

http://www.coindesk.com/safello-co-founder-moves-tokyo-start-new-bitcoin-security-firm/

what is going on with Tokyo? Are they going to clean MtGox mess?? is this is just my feeling??

I have no money at stake, but if I had I would be extremely wary of letting any bitcoiners or bitcoin companies play a key role in the investigation -- especially if they seem eager to help, like Sunlot, OKCoin, Kraken, and that new firm above.

We do not know what happened, except that the criminal was obviously familiar with bitcoin.  So, every bitcoiner should be considered a suspect, including all the significant ex-clients.  Everyone who was somehow close to MtGOX (like Roger Ver, who was a  neighbor and close friend of Mark) should be suspect also. 

Perhaps the Judge and/or Kobayashi and/or his hired consutants are corrupt too, but at least they should be bound -- by the obligation of their offices, and for the sake of their reputations -- to be fair, to follow the law, and to be minimally transparent in their actions.  The former MtGOX management and staff, ex-clients, and other outsiders do not have any such obligations.

[bitcoinvest]

this is the fact...1 year passed and we still don't have a clue where are our bitcoins...
too many people have been there to help and of course not for free...
i'm not in position to say if they want to cover up something or clear everything... time will tell
one is the fact. we are talking about huge huge fraud for all of us ( customers of gox and the community) and police should clear this out immediately.

my personal opinion is they are trying to either make it forget or clear the case..
what i don't believe is we are going to see our bitcoins again or the fiat after so many time without results....

[macsga]

http://www.coindesk.com/safello-co-founder-moves-tokyo-start-new-bitcoin-security-firm/

what is going on with Tokyo? Are they going to clean MtGox mess?? is this is just my feeling??

I have no money at stake, but if I had I would be extremely wary of letting any bitcoiners or bitcoin companies play a key role in the investigation -- especially if they seem eager to help, like Sunlot, OKCoin, Kraken, and that new firm above.

We do not know what happened, except that the criminal was obviously familiar with bitcoin.  So, every bitcoiner should be considered a suspect, including all the significant ex-clients.  Everyone who was somehow close to MtGOX (like Roger Ver, who was a  neighbor and close friend of Mark) should be suspect also. 

Perhaps the Judge and/or Kobayashi and/or his hired consutants are corrupt too, but at least they should be bound -- by the obligation of their offices, and for the sake of their reputations -- to be fair, to follow the law, and to be minimally transparent in their actions.  The former MtGOX management and staff, ex-clients, and other outsiders do not have any such obligations.

Jorge, it's not sane nor logical to judge every bitcoiner as a ''suspect'' and thus rule them all out from the process. It's the very same to rule every financial investigator out because they're involved with money and they're suspects!

The fact is that there's an ongoing investigation that will need every resource available to get the best results. If no bitcoin-related was ever involved, things would be in the dark for a much longer period. Take for instance someone who has no idea how bitcoin works, or how the infrastructure is implemented. How on earth could he be in the position to judge what (technically) happened?

I don't think that we must see ghosts wherever we look at. Time will eventually reveal what happened, plus, I expect it to happen earlier than April. Bitcoin is far to big to keep it steady for almost a year and up until now we've had a rather good excuse... but it slowly faints.

[JorgeStolfi]

Jorge, it's not sane nor logical to judge every bitcoiner as a ''suspect'' and thus rule them all out from the process. It's the very same to rule every financial investigator out because they're involved with money and they're suspects!

All people who could have been involved in the disappearance of those coins should be suspect.  Since we onlookers have not the faintest idea of when and how the coins disappeared, our list of suspects should include everybody who could have the technical knowledge and means to do that; which means millions of people with knowledge or bitcoin and computers. 

Hopefully the investigators have more information about the hack/theft, so they can narrow that list substantially.  In financial crimes it is easy to exclude most financial experts from the list of suspects, for lack of means and opportunity; not so easy in computer crimes.

In general, investigators can and do obtain useful information from suspects without ceasing to consider them suspects.
I only wish that they do not lower their guard when they consider whether to use help from bitcoiners, especially from people like Powell who had some special connection to MtGox.

The fact is that there's an ongoing investigation that will need every resource available to get the best results. If no bitcoin-related was ever involved, things would be in the dark for a much longer period. Take for instance someone who has no idea how bitcoin works, or how the infrastructure is implemented. How on earth could he be in the position to judge what (technically) happened?

There are many people out there with a deep understanding of the bitcoin protocol who are not "bitcoiners".  There are many non-bitcoiner experts in networks, python programming, databases, etc., who together can figure out how the software worked and how it could have been attacked.  There are computer forensics experts who have skills and tools for tracing network connections, deciphering logs, etc., that a bitcoiner will probbably not have. And so on. Also, since MtGOX used private software, its operation probably was very different than that of Kraken.

[DrApricot]

Jorge, it's not sane nor logical to judge every bitcoiner as a ''suspect'' and thus rule them all out from the process. It's the very same to rule every financial investigator out because they're involved with money and they're suspects!

All people who could have been involved in the disappearance of those coins should be suspect.  Since we onlookers have not the faintest idea of when and how the coins disappeared, our list of suspects should include everybody who could have the technical knowledge and means to do that; which means millions of people with knowledge or bitcoin and computers.  

Hopefully the investigators have more information about the hack/theft, so they can narrow that list substantially.  In financial crimes it is easy to exclude most financial experts from the list of suspects, for lack of means and opportunity; not so easy in computer crimes.

In general, investigators can and do obtain useful information from suspects without ceasing to consider them suspects.
I only wish that they do not lower their guard when they consider whether to use help from bitcoiners, especially from people like Powell who had some special connection to MtGox.

The fact is that there's an ongoing investigation that will need every resource available to get the best results. If no bitcoin-related was ever involved, things would be in the dark for a much longer period. Take for instance someone who has no idea how bitcoin works, or how the infrastructure is implemented. How on earth could he be in the position to judge what (technically) happened?

There are many people out there with a deep understanding of the bitcoin protocol who are not "bitcoiners".  There are many non-bitcoiner experts in networks, python programming, databases, etc., who together can figure out how the software worked and how it could have been attacked.  There are computer forensics experts who have skills and tools for tracing network connections, deciphering logs, etc., that a bitcoiner will probbably not have. And so on. Also, since MtGOX used private software, its operation probably was very different than that of Kraken.

As long as we're pointing fingers, lets not forget the missing $26 million in bank deposits. There is considerable evidence of bank fraud in the Mt. Gox case according to Swiss investigative firm, CCI AG. See http://www.mtgoxinvestigation.com/. Since a firm like Kobayashi's, Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu (NO&T), often finds itself working on mergers and acquisitions as well as bankruptcies, they would have Japanese banks and large corporations as their major clients.

An investigation into their involvement of these banks, etc. could represent a conflict of interest blocking complete objectivity by the trustee. That could account for the great atmosphere of secrecy noted by Kolin Burges in his report on the second creditor's meeting http://www.mtgoxprotest.com/. Secrecy would need to be maintained in order to avoid damaging the reputation of NO&T's banking clients.

Any comprehensive investigation of hacking Mt. Gox should not overlook possible involvement by one or more bank employees.

[cafminer1]

There are many people out there with a deep understanding of the bitcoin protocol who are not "bitcoiners".

Wow... If I may feel or think so, that would mean some kind of disgrace to us all...

I understand your point, and technique, science, protocol, knowledge, are well spread over the world. I am not extending THIS debate of who might help MtGox investigation.

On the other side, deep understanding BTC and not being a bitcoiner would at least demand that knowledge is applied into another cryptocoin, better than BTC. (which one??)

Or BTC is just something with no future and those who knows it are not there.

[JorgeStolfi]

Wow... If I may feel or think so, that would mean some kind of disgrace to us all... [ ... ] On the other side, deep understanding BTC and not being a bitcoiner would at least demand that knowledge is applied into another cryptocoin, better than BTC. (which one??) Or BTC is just something with no future and those who knows it are not there.

Indeed, there are many knowledgeable ex-bitcoiners who have abandoned Bitcoin to work on other cryptocoins.  But I wasn't thinking of those.  (They could be involved in the MtGOX collapse too.) Also there must be many hackers who do not believe in bitcoin, and just sell whatever coins they can steal in the black market.  There is also, for example, a guy that goes by the nickname @BitcoinExpress who claims to be an expert in breaking altcoins.

I was thinking of people like these two:
http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/16/how-a-mining-monopoly-can-attack-bitcoin/

Their conclusions by be disputed, but they certainly understand the protocol and the system better than most bitcoiners.

[bitcoinvest]

We have great minds in our world people, and don't have to be involved with bitcoin ( if you are a programmer you need maximum one month to understand everything that is needed for the case and the bitcoin )in order to help with MtGox case, logs and back up must have already spoken to who is reading them, the same with missing $26 million in bank deposits.Can you think it for a moment??? This is crazy and of course more crazy than the missing BTC.
One year later all the fiat must have already found or found where they send it or who has it... the same for the BTC missed..

It's clear to me at least that, all this year they do either the A plan or the B plan
A) trying to clear everything out and give back the BTC and fiat missing.
    In that case BTC in my opinion will go TO DA MOON beyond imagination... ( just my feeling, because guys all the customers of MtGox are among the big players on the game and moved the market up to the day MtGox shut down....if we do get back our fiat and BTC we know how to trade again...of course there are opinions of fake accounts etc i'm talking about real traders - customers)

B) trying to cover everything and give back some donats to us

[JorgeStolfi]

A) trying to clear everything out and give back the BTC and fiat missing.
B) trying to cover everything and give back some donats to us

Well, my current best guess (far from certainty, and not the only one) about what happened is that the management and/or accomplices took the bitcoins that MtGOX was holding on behalf  their clients and sold them for yuan at the Chinese exchanges, profiting from the price difference.  In this theory, they hoped to withdraw the yuan and convert them to yen or dollars at some later time, before the clients noticed; but either someone stole the yuan, or they were lost when the Chinese exchanges lost their bank accounts.

if this theory is correct, the coins were bought by thousands of innocent Chinese investors and speculators, with real yuan, resold many times, and cannot be recovered.  The Chinese exchanges owe some 400 M$ to the embezzlers, but they cannot pay because they lost the money, and the embezzlers obviously cannot sue them.

So there is a third possibility (the most common one in bankruptcies):
C) they will figure out and publish what happened, but cannot recover the missing coins and money, and will distribute only what was left.

[macsga]

We all seem to forget one crucial parameter here. ALL the transactions happened OFFLINE. That means they were (from a point and beyond) nothing but SQL entries and/or algorithm based. You can pump n dump anything this way (which I think what was happened in the MtGox case) and there's a bonus!

THERE'S NO ONE TO BLAME, because it's not illegal!

The worst part on this though, is that the majority of the Eastern exchanges are working under the very same conditions. I will leave a blank spot for the EU/USA ones since they have money transmitter licences. Greed is the ruler here. It's a matter of time when we witness the next similar big bang. For that matter, who knows if it's not happening as we speak? What's the main reason that the price is being kept at these levels when last year with half of the good news we'd go over $2000 by now...

[bitcoinvest]

. For that matter, who knows if it's not happening as we speak? What's the main reason that the price is being kept at these levels when last year with half of the good news we'd go over $2000 by now...

i agree with you and by the news of Microsoft, or Paypal etc we should be at least double but yes there is a reason of keep increasing the acceptance and the transaction number and still low....

At http://www.mtgoxinvestigation.com
they write on the home page:

" What we suspect

According to data received at CCI, there is a reasonable doubt that, during Jan 25th to Feb 25th, money deposited by clients of Mt. Gox, was reported as transferred to Mt. Gox’s clients’ account, while in fact was routed elsewhere."

And Kobayiashi did not comment anything on the meeting...

[JorgeStolfi]

By the way, another theory I have for what happened at MtGOX is:

In Aug/2013 (say) some big investor sought MtGOX's management and proposed to buy all the coins that they would sell at 200 $/BTC.  The price at the time was 110 $/BTC, so the management gave in and sold 800'000 BTC for 160 M$.  Of course they had no right to do that, since the coins were not theirs but were only held on behalf of the clients; but they thought that, when a client wanted to withdraw, they could buy the BTC from the market for ~110 $/BTC, and still make the 90 $/BTC profit.  

But then the Nov/2013 rally happened, and, before the management could react, the price surged and more or less stabilized at ~800 $/BTC, four times their sale price.  Then they could only buy back 1/4 of the coins that they had sold, namely 200'000 BTC; but still owed 800'000 BTC to their clients.  

If this is what happened, then perhaps that investor can be identified, and forced to return the coins or their equivalent in dollars at a suitably high price (since he was knowingly buying stolen property).  However, that investor could be someone outside the reach of the law, such as an anonymous gangster from Yakuza or the Chinese mafia; or someone with enough power to block the investigation...

[JorgeStolfi]

THERE'S NO ONE TO BLAME, because it's not illegal!

That is not true, the Japanese courts have already recognized that the claims of the ex-clients against MtGOX have merit (although the way the claims will be evaluated is still highly undefined, as I pointed out to exhaustion here), and Kobayashi has asked the police to investigate something (not clear if the investigation will look into the 660'000 missing ones, or some other fishy things that they found in the books).  In the two scenarios that I just suggested, crimes would have been committed for sure, even if the trades of clients inside MtGOX are considered irrelevant.

[macsga]

THERE'S NO ONE TO BLAME, because it's not illegal!

That is not true, the Japanese courts have already recognized that the claims of the ex-clients against MtGOX have merit (although the way the claims will be evaluated is still highly undefined, as I pointed out to exhaustion here), and Kobayashi has asked the police to investigate something (not clear if the investigation will look into the 660'000 missing ones, or some other fishy things that they found in the books).  In the two scenarios that I just suggested, crimes would have been committed for sure, even if the trades of clients inside MtGOX are considered irrelevant.

I was not referring to MtGox per se, but on the process of transacting with fiat/bitcoin or vice versa through an exchange. If I had a say through the regulation process, I'd propose the obvious:

If a transaction is NOT on the ledger, it must be declared as illegal and the person(s) involved should be hunted down for a fraud.

Simple as that.