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[darkmule]

Guys, don't want to spread FUD.

Just facts:

Well that would be good, but typically when someone starts by saying that, 99% of the time, they follow it up with FUD, and not facts.  We'll see.

It's sort of like "I'm not a racist, but. . ." is invariably followed by something racist, and anything that comes before "no homo" is the gayest thing you ever heard (not that there's anything wrong with that).

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[bananas]

I foun him, his name is Andreas M. Antonopoulos

http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/1yauc9/andreas_antonopoulos_gox_was_warned_and_had_funds/


"So they got taken for a bit of a ride, and lost some money, but not much. And now they're fixing their systems and I expect, eventually, they're going to get it right again."


There are other statements like that from him. Negative statements truth be told, but some are followed by "it will be fine in the end".

[Warren]

- snip -
during those few days all these well-known Bitcoin figures were saying they were convinced Gox would be fine.
- snip -

I didn't see that at all?  Can you provide a link to even one instance in the past few days of someone from the Bitcoin Foundation (or any well-informed member of the bitcoin community) saying they were convinced Gox would be fine?

I don't have links, but i also read several of them saying that on the news, twitter etc, they were the ones who signed the contradictory statement.

If anyone has a single link to any of the following people saying they were convinced Gox would be fine during the past few days, I'd really like to see it.  I suspect that the people saying such things were not the people whose names are on the "join statement":

That popular guy with a big strange east european name...find his twitter and you read several statements of this kind. I think he is from blockchain.info, i don't remember.
Everything else i read over the news,  a research will have to be done.

The foundation message board is full of liars too.

I don't see any strange east European names on the "joint statement".  This is exactly what I'm talking about.  You heard some guy say something you don't like, and you automatically attribute it to a group you don't like.

I'm not saying that the signatories on the "joint statement" didn't make claims that "they were convinced Gox would be fine", I'm just saying that I haven't seen it, and I won't make judgements based on rumors and false accusations.  Show me a reliable link and I'll back you up.  I'll tell everyone to avoid any service they are associated with.

That goes for any of the board members of The Bitcoin Foundation as well.  I'd like to see just one reliable link from the past few days of any of the following people making claims that "they were convinced Gox would be fine":

• Gavin Andresen
• Micky Malka
• Jon Matonis
• Elizabeth T. Ploshay
• Peter Vessenes
• Patrick Murck

If such links don't exist, then you're just as bad as you are accusing them of being.  You are making false statements based on rumors or false knowledge to try and destroy the reputations of people that aren't proven to have done the things you are accusing them of.

If you don't like someone, or an organization, go ahead and say that you don't like them, but there is no need to be throwing around unsubstantiated accusations.

Let me first say that I don't believe in the OP's conspiracy theories for a second.

However, if someone can tell me the date MtGox was removed as a recommended exchange from the Bitcoing.org website, (which is run by several of the people on your list), that might help to clarify when the core development team had actually lost confidence in MtGox?

I feel it is very sad that an exchange that has been involved in so many mistakes and so much controversy for so many years were listed as a recommended exchange (the top of the list I believe, perhaps based on volume?), up until relatively recently.

It is sad because people that only recently discovered Bitcoin will not have been following the forums, and trusted that recommendation, which is in fact what it is, and deposited fresh fiat into a doomed exchange. Some of these people might now have lost trust in Bitcoin forever due to this situation.  

[richmke]

- Now that Gox will be gone EXPECT HEAVY REGULATORY RISK.
The first exchanges to go down will be probably Bitstamp and Btc-e as they are located in Europe and Europe will heavily regulate exchanges as they promised, especially off-shored ones.

Actually, you want Heavy Regulations for exchanges. The types of regulations you want are:

1) Segregation of Customer Assets from Company Assets
2) Rules to ensure solvency of counterparties (margin requirements for trading)
3) Rules for timely crediting of deposits and processing of withdrawals
4) Rules to prevent insider trading and self dealing (manipulating the order book)
5) Regular audits to ensure safe keeping of Customer Assets

If there were an SEC regulated exchange for BTC, BTC Futures, and BTC options, I would be the first to sign up and trade there. As they say, "Return of my principal is more important than return on my principal". Right now, how do you know which exchange you can trust? You don't, and that is a transaction barrier. Drop the barriers, and more people would be willing to participate. Imagine if you did not know where it was safe to deposit your fiat money. The heavy regulation makes it easy for you to deposit money at a bank without a second thought.

[justusranvier]

Actually, you want Heavy Regulations for exchanges. The types of regulations you want are:

1) Segregation of Customer Assets from Company Assets
2) Rules to ensure solvency of counterparties (margin requirements for trading)
3) Rules for timely crediting of deposits and processing of withdrawals
4) Rules to prevent insider trading and self dealing (manipulating the order book)
5) Regular audits to ensure safe keeping of Customer Assets

If there were an SEC regulated exchange for BTC, BTC Futures, and BTC options, I would be the first to sign up and trade there. As they say, "Return of my principal is more important than return on my principal". Right now, how do you know which exchange you can trust? You don't, and that is a transaction barrier. Drop the barriers, and more people would be willing to participate.

The SEC con artists and scammers. They claim to ensure those five things you mention, and when they ignore repeated warnings or just watch porn instead of doing their job they have no accountability for their failure.

Anybody who pushes regulation as a solution to the problem of exchanges is being disingenuous. Regulation is a power grab, not a solution to a problem.

You want sound exchanges that can't lose or steal customer funds? Find a way to do it with cryptography. If you think the problem of losing money because the people you trusted to do the right thing didn't can be solved by trusting different people to do the right things you're a fool or a liar.

[GodfatherBond]

Actually, you want Heavy Regulations for exchanges. The types of regulations you want are:

1) Segregation of Customer Assets from Company Assets
2) Rules to ensure solvency of counterparties (margin requirements for trading)
3) Rules for timely crediting of deposits and processing of withdrawals
4) Rules to prevent insider trading and self dealing (manipulating the order book)
5) Regular audits to ensure safe keeping of Customer Assets

If there were an SEC regulated exchange for BTC, BTC Futures, and BTC options, I would be the first to sign up and trade there. As they say, "Return of my principal is more important than return on my principal". Right now, how do you know which exchange you can trust? You don't, and that is a transaction barrier. Drop the barriers, and more people would be willing to participate.

The SEC con artists and scammers. They claim to ensure those five things you mention, and when they ignore repeated warnings or just watch porn instead of doing their job they have no accountability for their failure.

Anybody who pushes regulation as a solution to the problem of exchanges is being disingenuous. Regulation is a power grab, not a solution to a problem.

You want sound exchanges that can't lose or steal customer funds? Find a way to do it with cryptography. If you think the problem of losing money because the people you trusted to do the right thing didn't can be solved by trusting different people to do the right things you're a fool or a liar.

+10

[darkmule]

1) Segregation of Customer Assets from Company Assets
2) Rules to ensure solvency of counterparties (margin requirements for trading)
3) Rules for timely crediting of deposits and processing of withdrawals
4) Rules to prevent insider trading and self dealing (manipulating the order book)
5) Regular audits to ensure safe keeping of Customer Assets

If there were an SEC regulated exchange for BTC, BTC Futures, and BTC options, I would be the first to sign up and trade there. As they say, "Return of my principal is more important than return on my principal". Right now, how do you know which exchange you can trust? You don't, and that is a transaction barrier.

The closest to regulatory compliance I can see is Coinbase, which is at least registered with FinCEN and working toward figuring out the regulations in any states where it might be necessary.  They also appear to have (if their claims are accurate), a reasonably good protocol for securing coins and keeping them in cold storage.  

Gox claimed to have cold storage, but I don't see how that claim can possibly be consistent with losing the vast majority of customer funds.  

[DannyHamilton]

I foun him, his name is Andreas M. Antonopoulos

http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/1yauc9/andreas_antonopoulos_gox_was_warned_and_had_funds/


"So they got taken for a bit of a ride, and lost some money, but not much. And now they're fixing their systems and I expect, eventually, they're going to get it right again."


There are other statements like that from him. Negative statements truth be told, but some are followed by "it will be fine in the end".

That link is from February 13.  Mr. Antonopoulos was not at that time involved in assisting MtGox with fixing their problems and was talking based on recent reports at that time.  Furthermore, Mr. Antonopoulos is not a staff member of MtGox, is not one of the signatories of the "joint statement", and is not a board member at The Bitcoin Foundation.  There is no reason to believe that Mr. Antonopoulos has any additional information at that time than what he was reporting.  Even if he did, he's just some popular speaker (as you already mentioned), and anything that he said shouldn't be used to cast a shadow over the organizations that he isn't a part of.

[DannyHamilton]

They also appear to have (if their claims are accurate), a reasonably good protocol for securing coins and keeping them in cold storage.  

Gox claimed to have cold storage, but I don't see how that claim can possibly be consistent with losing the vast majority of customer funds.  

So Gox claims can't possibly be consistent, and you you accept Coinbase claims at face value?

Perhaps what would be better would be an independent financial AND security audit performed by a trusted third party?  Partnership with a major global insurance underwriter to insure the security of deposits would be helpful as well.

[richmke]

You want sound exchanges that can't lose or steal customer funds? Find a way to do it with cryptography. If you think the problem of losing money because the people you trusted to do the right thing didn't can be solved by trusting different people to do the right things you're a fool or a liar.

Good luck. As soon as you transfer BTC to the exchange, you are at their mercy.

One possible way is to have your own wallet that they control. Kind of like the on-line wallets. They are the only ones with the withdrawal key. Then they could pay for your transactions out of your wallet, and you could keep a watch on the balance.

Problems:

1) Risk of any on-line wallet: Someone there steals your money. They go broke, and the withdrawal key is lost. Or, they somehow loose the withdrawal key. Maybe some type of key bank that you can access with a private key. Once you use the keybank, the account can no longer be used for trading (since they do not exclusively control it anymore). Maybe a 24 hour delay to give them time to stop trading on our account and close out any open positions.

2) It may take time to clear trades, but if they control the wallets, then they would not need to wait for confirms.

A segregated real wallet that you can watch could solve a lot of trust problems. You still have the counter party, and the risk of them manipulating the exchange. You also have the problem with fiat money balances. Would you accept regulations to cover that?

[justusranvier]

Good luck. As soon as you transfer BTC to the exchange, you are at their mercy.

It doesn't have to be that way at all.

Of course it's best if people don't hand their coins over to third parties at all, but since that message continually falls of deaf ears the next best thing is to implement a system that does unimpeachable real time accounting of both the btc asset and liability side, and also prevents any single entity from losing or stealing coins:

http://bitcoinism.blogspot.com/2013/12/voting-pools-how-to-stop-plague-of.html

[Lauda]

I don't see any strange east European names on the "joint statement".  This is exactly what I'm talking about.  You heard some guy say something you don't like, and you automatically attribute it to a group you don't like.

I'm not saying that the signatories on the "joint statement" didn't make claims that "they were convinced Gox would be fine", I'm just saying that I haven't seen it, and I won't make judgements based on rumors and false accusations.  Show me a reliable link and I'll back you up.  I'll tell everyone to avoid any service they are associated with.

That goes for any of the board members of The Bitcoin Foundation as well.  I'd like to see just one reliable link from the past few days of any of the following people making claims that "they were convinced Gox would be fine":

• Gavin Andresen
• Micky Malka
• Jon Matonis
• Elizabeth T. Ploshay
• Peter Vessenes
• Patrick Murck

If such links don't exist, then you're just as bad as you are accusing them of being.  You are making false statements based on rumors or false knowledge to try and destroy the reputations of people that aren't proven to have done the things you are accusing them of.

If you don't like someone, or an organization, go ahead and say that you don't like them, but there is no need to be throwing around unsubstantiated accusations.

This might not be that incorrect. What was the foundation doing all this time? Gaving is developing, okay, the others? Pretty much nothing. This could have been prevented.
Many members here have warned people about Gox, and they have obviously been right all this time, while the foundation was blind.

[CurbsideProphet]

The writing has been on the wall about Gox for a LONG time now.  It's not like this should come as a surprise to anyone.  There will be no increased regulation because of Gox's incompetence, regulators only care about money laundering, not some dummy who can't run his business. 

[Amitabh S]

Guys, don't want to spread facts.

Just FUD:
[...]

Fixed your typo.

[darkmule]

They also appear to have (if their claims are accurate), a reasonably good protocol for securing coins and keeping them in cold storage.  

Gox claimed to have cold storage, but I don't see how that claim can possibly be consistent with losing the vast majority of customer funds.  

So Gox claims can't possibly be consistent, and you you accept Coinbase claims at face value?

Straw man alert.  Coinbase doesn't have a years long history of constant lying.  Their claims are entitled to somewhat more credence.

[OnkelPaul]

Careful OP.  Moderators here aren't going to take kindly to anything negative about MTGOX. They will quickly dump your post into "Service" even though your post is a general post not just about MTGOX but about Bitcoin. Or worse, they'll delete your post.

O RLY?

Looks like mods are truly overworked. The whole forum is being flooded with anti-gox posts, and I don't see any of them being removed...

Onkel Paul

[DannyHamilton]

They also appear to have (if their claims are accurate), a reasonably good protocol for securing coins and keeping them in cold storage.  

Gox claimed to have cold storage, but I don't see how that claim can possibly be consistent with losing the vast majority of customer funds.  

So Gox claims can't possibly be consistent, and you you accept Coinbase claims at face value?

Straw man alert.  Coinbase doesn't have a years long history of constant lying.  Their claims are entitled to somewhat more credence.

Not a straw man.  Check the definition.  It would only be a straw man if I was the one who introduced the idea that Coinbase's claims were accurate specifically so that I could knock it down.

You were the one that introduced the "if their claims are accurate" statement in reference to Coinbase, therefore not a straw man.

Furthermore, I'd think if there is one thing people would have learned by now it that a good reputation is a very poor indicator of reliability.  After Bitcoinica, Instawallet, Bitcoin Savings & Trust, and inputs.io I'd think that by now people would start to see that if Coinbase wants us to believe that they have "a reasonably good protocol for securing coins and keeping them in cold storage" then we need more than "claims" by them.  At a minimum they need to provide an independent audit by a trusted third party.

Better yet would be complete transparency of their process.

[Lauda]

One does simply not keep $350M in a single cold wallet.

[bitcoinminer]

One does simply not keep $350M in a single cold wallet.

"We have HUNDREDS of cold wallets!  We just don't use any of them.  We decided to automate re-spending of coins rather than implement a simple line of code that would force a human to look at the request."

[darkmule]

Your post is gibberish.  One site has been demonstrably transparent, the other hasn't.  I'm done playing with trolls.