Mt.Gox SCAM? $38million disappeared. Large sums affected.

[Come-from-Beyond]

MtGox does not have "issues" sending the money. They just don't have the money. End of story.

[1715292980]

1715292980

[dserrano5]

I would only use an exchange as a last resort if there is no possibility of a local p2p trade.

LocalBitcoins.com

Agreed but the spread in Spain (or Madrid at least) is awful. People are greedy.

[Bobsurplus]

MtGox does not have "issues" sending the money. They just don't have the money. End of story.

This one really cracked me up. I still cant understand why people are using Gox, just cut your losses and move on.

[smoothie]

MtGox does not have "issues" sending the money. They just don't have the money. End of story.

ROFL! 

[nmtrader100]

Are BTC withdrawals completely down for everyone now?  I am surprised there is not a bigger stick going on around here.  I know a lot of idiots like me still use Gox for trading/diversification.  I am waiting 6 hours now for a 1 BTC withdrawal.

[CompNsci]

just got off IRC with Karpeles.

it's a technical glitch, not insolvency.  they're still working to fix it.

Which channel do you find him on? I've looked occasionally and don't see him on the obvious ones.

I agree that the available public record of the withdraw transactions supports the idea that it is most likely a technical glitch.

Nonetheless, that exchange really needs to clean up its professional act.

[keithers]

just got off IRC with Karpeles.

it's a technical glitch, not insolvency.  they're still working to fix it.

Which channel do you find him on? I've looked occasionally and don't see him on the obvious ones.

I agree that the available public record of the withdraw transactions supports the idea that it is most likely a technical glitch.

Nonetheless, that exchange really needs to clean up its professional act.

So you are really buying the fact that it is a technical glitch that it is only affecting the  "larger" withdrawals?

[CompNsci]

You just can't have problems sending BTC, thats the whole point of the protocol.

Unless you don't have BTC to send.

Actually, if you check the transactions they are trying to post, which is available on the public api, it turns out they are trying to post invalid transactions which spend the same output twice. See comment 27 on the Falvinge article at
Comment #27 on http://falkvinge.net/2014/02/04/major-bitcoin-exchange-not-executing-withdrawals-now-owes-clients-38m-in-disappeared-money/ .

So not only is it possible, but Mt. Gox found a way to do so on a massive scale!

[CompNsci]

So you are really buying the fact that it is a technical glitch that it is only affecting the  "larger" withdrawals?

As I posted previously, it appears to affect both small and larger withdrawals. Though larger withdrawals, which have to draw inputs from a larger number of other transactions might have a greater probability of using some outputs which have already been used.

The comment on the article I linked to just above
(Comment #27 on http://falkvinge.net/2014/02/04/major-bitcoin-exchange-not-executing-withdrawals-now-owes-clients-38m-in-disappeared-money/ ) has a pretty good discussion of what is likely happening.

A very frustrating and annoying situation due to incompetence, but I suspect not malice.

[medialab101]

So you are really buying the fact that it is a technical glitch that it is only affecting the  "larger" withdrawals?

As I posted previously, it appears to affect both small and larger withdrawals. Though larger withdrawals, which have to draw inputs from a larger number of other transactions might have a greater probability of using some outputs which have already been used.

The comment on the article I linked to just above
(Comment #27 on http://falkvinge.net/2014/02/04/major-bitcoin-exchange-not-executing-withdrawals-now-owes-clients-38m-in-disappeared-money/ ) has a pretty good discussion of what is likely happening.

A very frustrating and annoying situation due to incompetence, but I suspect not malice.

I've been tracking several threads on this and the overall feeling seems to be 'unfathomable incompetence' rather than 'straight up Ponzi scam.'

[aesma]

Banks are the enemy right? Imagine if you walked into a bank and they said "sorry no withdraws our system is down until who knows when". And then it started happening at a lot of banks, and certain banks would just vanish after you deposited your money would you still have faith in the banking system? Its a big deal.

Well if you use MtGox you're still using banks, bitcoin has not much to do with that.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

MtGox does not have "issues" sending the money. They just don't have the money. End of story.

I, too, want to quote the best post on this thread, sans resizing the epic pic.

[CompNsci]

I've been tracking several threads on this and the overall feeling seems to be 'unfathomable incompetence' rather than 'straight up Ponzi scam.'

Yes, while it likely is hard to properly sort the transactions and which outputs to use and then having to wait for acceptance on the chain before using the change, it can be done in a proper multi-threaded way. Not properly testing software in such broad use on a test network with good stress testing is a bit ridiculous if it wasn't done. OTOH, race conditions in multi-threaded programs are some of the hardest to debug.

[medialab101]

I've been tracking several threads on this and the overall feeling seems to be 'unfathomable incompetence' rather than 'straight up Ponzi scam.'

Yes, while it likely is hard to properly sort the transactions and which outputs to use and then having to wait for acceptance on the chain before using the change, it can be done in a proper multi-threaded way. Not properly testing software in such broad use on a test network with good stress testing is a bit ridiculous if it wasn't done. OTOH, race conditions in multi-threaded programs are some of the hardest to debug.

However, this story did give me pause... I'm pretty sure this was Gox, I've seen these sorts of transactions go through in the past month.   http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1wtbiu/how_i_stole_roughly_100_btc_from_an_exchange_and/

[tvbcof]

However, this story did give me pause... I'm pretty sure this was Gox, I've seen these sorts of transactions go through in the past month.   http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1wtbiu/how_i_stole_roughly_100_btc_from_an_exchange_and/

ROTFL!  I bet it was Gox.  What a bunch of goobs.

I had estimated that by this time Mt. Gox would have hired some competent engineers, especially considering all the problems they've suffered in the past.  Bzzzt.  Thankfully I drew all my funding to zero some months ago since by that time it looked like my estimates were in error.  And, of course, for Americans they are largely useless to use for almost anything resembling and exchange or a reliable and forthright business partner.

[AndersAA]

Why would anyone have 0.00000001BTC at MtGox? You can't withdraw so the only point would be to trade and speculate - but why leave anything you care about there when you are done trading! When do people learn to keep their own money in their own wallets?

My bet at the moment would be technical glitches worsened by more people trying to withdraw though - if MtGox was going to run they probably would've done so a while ago.

[donate2me]

I'm looking for answers as to why KNC, coin terra, butterfly labs, hash fast , etc don't actually sell anything.  They just take thousands of dollars from people trusting they will get a money making machine.  I'm sorry but I don't buy into this.  And now that mt gox is being revealed as a Ponzi scheme,  it just seem very suspicious.  Someone is making a grip of money,  which means that thousands of people have to lose money!  Good luck to all!

[kkaspar]

MtGox does not have "issues" sending the money. They just don't have the money. End of story.

Believe it or not, but there are people out there, who find information channels, like this forum, too complex to comprehend. There are people out there who are used to getting their information from the evening news, and if some of them lose their path and wonder to the world of bitcoin, then they will get their information from places like bitcoin.org. Places that are still recommending MtGox as the first choice of exchanges.. There is no clear central information network about the integrity of different exchanges.
And if you are saying "to hell with those people, they are stupid and deserve it", then you are saying to hell with bitcoin. Because these kind of people are still the majority of society, and these people would be the future of bitcoin if bitcoin has a future.
Don't be an elitist snoob with the fact that you get your information by more complex methods. That will scare away those who you see as inferior, and then they don't want to play bitcoin with you anymore..

[nmtrader100]

People generally assume that there is fraud afoot because no one can believe that they can possibly be as incompetent as they are. 

By the way, its not just large withdrawals.  I tried to withdraw 1 BTC today, going on 12 hours now and it still has not gone through.  I don't think any withdrawals at all are happening.  You would think they would stop withdrawals until they figure it out, or make an announcement, but alas, read the first sentence above.

[Alvara80]

Well my .8 ish BTC withdrawal has been pending for over an hour for me now.

It's amazing how many incompetent programmers there are in the world.
I've worked with enough of them.