I'm Kevin, here's my side.

[chihlidog]

You people making the stolen property analogies are leaving out one critical factor. The middleman.

Let's say you go to a used car dealer, and you purchase a vehicle. Later it comes to light that the car was stolen. Would you then give the vehicle back? No. You wouldnt. The dealer would be responsible. Simple as that. The dealer would have to re-imburse either the original victim, or give the car back and re-coup the buyer. It doesnt matter what price the car was, if I bought it for 5 dollars, it was an agreement made with a professional organization who decided to get into the business of selling these things.

[piuk]

toasty, just take the money and run I bet mt.gox would do the same if given half the chance.

[relative]

I had around $3000 USD in the account before this started. They valued the bitcoins I received at $1000 when they were sent. I still had a positive cash balance when trading was halted, too. Both of us could be making demands of each other right now, and I don't think that's in our best interests.

I don't wanna argue the case with you.
all I'm saying: public statements when you MIGHT get sued are never a good idea, especially when you have nothing to gain.

[myrkul]

You people making the stolen property analogies are leaving out one critical factor. The middleman.

Let's say you go to a used car dealer, and you purchase a vehicle. Later it comes to light that the car was stolen. Would you then give the vehicle back? No. You wouldnt. The dealer would be responsible. Simple as that.

No, you'd lose the car, You'd be lucky to get your money back, and the dealer would go to jail for receiving and selling stolen property.

I'd say Kevin is getting off easy here, he's getting all his money back, and may end up +643 BTC.

[chihlidog]

If the dealer could prove he didnt know the car was stolen, he likely wouldnt go to jail.

[martin]

even I realize that these trades must be rolled back in order to prevent a loss of confidence by the investor group.

mtgox will restore confidence and keep the bitcoin economy alive.  It's a win-win.

I'll tell you what causes a loss of confidence: an exchange that takes arbitrary actions which it never specified in its user agreement to protect itself.

I got all of my dollars and bitcoins of of mtgox a few weeks ago. I've been generally unimpressed by the standard of mtgox software ever since it was first released, and this whole hacking fandango came as no surprise to me unfortunately.

With that said, MtGox does have some culpability.

What's with so many people loving mtgox? they have "some responsibility" for writing crappy software, getting hacked via a dodgy auditor and getting the entire contents of the exchange sold off in 5 minutes? You're right, they do have the tiniest smidgeon of responsibility there...

[toasty]

I had around $3000 USD in the account before this started. They valued the bitcoins I received at $1000 when they were sent. I still had a positive cash balance when trading was halted, too. Both of us could be making demands of each other right now, and I don't think that's in our best interests.

I don't wanna argue the case with you.
all I'm saying: public statements when you MIGHT get sued are never a good idea, especially when you have nothing to gain.

I also have very little to lose. If it really did come down to it, and I was forced to give up the 643 BTC, it would suck, but I would move on. I can't think of anything they could possibly sue over beyond this, and if they tried it they'd definitely look like the bad guys here.

[Desu]

Oh Wow.

[tymothy]

You people making the stolen property analogies are leaving out one critical factor. The middleman.

Let's say you go to a used car dealer, and you purchase a vehicle. Later it comes to light that the car was stolen. Would you then give the vehicle back? No. You wouldnt. The dealer would be responsible. Simple as that.

The police would seize your vehicle if they were aware of the situation. If you didn't know it was stolen, you wouldn't be charged with any crime.

[dutt]

Very good post OP, I completely agree.
As I said here the rollback punishes the people who stood up and did the right (heroic) thing.

Next time the market drops there will be less incentive to step up and buy:
1) They could lose if the market keeps going down for a long time.
2) They could lose if it was a short term selloff which then would be undone by a rollback.

I know the rollback is a rare occasion, but so was this crash, what if the next crash less people will stand up? Just roll it back again? Where do you draw the line.

[BitQuestr (BitCoinWorldMarket)]

No where did I hear Kevin say "I should get to keep them all!"

In fact he is speaking out primarily because he personal account contradicts MtGox side of things.

This is not going to be solved on an internet forum. I personally can't claim to know anything about the truth.

However MtGox has established itself as a reputable business within our community. They do have records of all the trades, where the transfers came, and their own transfers. Much of this can be corroborated by independent sources and even within the bitcoin blocks themselves.

I do think that the only way MtGox will repair the trust lost from their investors and this community as well as quell any stupid conspiracies is to bring in an independent financial auditor or forensic investigator. Yes I know this is what caused the problem in the first place, THAT auditor deserves to be sued nine ways till sunday. However instead of a general audit this particular incident needs to be investigated and explained in detail.

There are just too many questions everyone has and it at this point is just too early to have all the information.

Let MtGox do a thorough investigation, let an independent investigator in (with tighter security controls in place), and lets all reserve judgement until the verifiable facts come out.

[onesalt]

So if suddenly bitcoin clients broke and everyone gained 99999btc you'd be fine with keeping those bitcoins then right?

[Phil21]

All this talk of theft and zero evidence an actual theft took place.

The system should be rolled back (imo).  But the actual story needs to come out, someone already said it better than I could have - my belief based on all the evidence is this was MtGox's actual account, not a users.  It is really the only plausible scenario that makes logical sense, based on the evidence available to us.

Does this mean a rollback should not happen?  IMO no!  But it means we're being lied to.  Why?

And seriously, people actually care about the 700 coins taken out that are likely to be given back when this is all resolved?  Man you guys focus on the wrong stuff.

[TraderTimm]

What you non-trading goofballs keep missing is the trade was fraudulent to begin with.

The rest is just bickering over who keeps a pot of gold that fell out of the sky.

Doesn't matter either way, the trades get rolled back and this thread will disappear under the newest wave of trollbait and ranting like usual. Just the way it is.

[Gandlaf]

Does anyone still remember how MtGox handled the last situation where there was a large amount at stake for MtGox?

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=3712.0

That guy explained himself, was hounded by the community, MtGox barely bothered to respond, made some outlandish claims, froze funds and rapidly moved the whole operation to a different jurisdiction (Japan) after the guy finaly decided to get lawyers involved.

MtGox promised to inform the community! No news yet, and it´s been 6 months!

[cschmitz]

Executive summary:

1.) "I took advantage of an extraordinary event that turned out to be initiated by a rogue sell order, not legitimate trading."

2.) "Can I keep it? Look, here's why."

No, sorry. To allow the trade to stand would legitimize the attack, is that what you really want? (Besides bitcoins and dollars, I mean.)

QFT.

Kevin, cry me a river and troll elsewhere.

[malavita]

toasty, you, and many others, underestimate resilience of Bitcoin and overestimate it's dependence on mtgox. I mean medium and long term.

Amen!

[martin]

Does anyone still remember how MtGox handled the last situation where there was a large amount at stake for MtGox?

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=3712.0

That guy explained himself, was hounded by the community, MtGox barely bothered to respond, made some outlandish claims, froze funds and rapidly moved the whole operation to a different jurisdiction (Japan) after the guy finaly decided to get lawyers involved.

MtGox promised to inform the community! No news yet, and it´s been 6 months!

Wow, my trust for mtgox just went a little lower, didn't know that was even possible any more.

Any news from Baron on if he ever got his money back?

[aral]

the trade was fraudulent to begin with.

Fine.  In that case the trade should be rolled back and the BTC returned.  But I'd insist on seeing the evidence.

When you talk about fat finger trades and so on, that is missing the fact that there are no T&Cs that anybody signed up to, the market is unregulated and the rules that apply on Wall Street do not apply to mt. gox.

[MeSarah]

You people making the stolen property analogies are leaving out one critical factor. The middleman.

Let's say you go to a used car dealer, and you purchase a vehicle. Later it comes to light that the car was stolen. Would you then give the vehicle back? No. You wouldnt. The dealer would be responsible. Simple as that. The dealer would have to re-imburse either the original victim, or give the car back and re-coup the buyer. It doesnt matter what price the car was, if I bought it for 5 dollars, it was an agreement made with a professional organization who decided to get into the business of selling these things.

Your wrong. I know someone how bought a stolen vehicle and they lost all their money and the vehicle. The dealer closed it doors. What do you do now? Sue the person whos vehicle was stole to get your money back? You mean in a theft you would want your items back?