[Community] Let's Move Forward From MtGox

[acoindr]

Make no mistake. The situation with MtGox affects all of us involved with crypto currency. The two things of most obvious concern are regulation, and confidence, both of which can be impacted by this situation.  

The magnitude of this has caught a lot of the community off guard, but assessing a problem accurately is the first step to finding solutions. I propose a few things to help us move past this.

First, let's show some maturity. It won't help any of us to dwell on the shortcomings of prior leadership at MtGox. I'll explain what I mean by "prior" in a second. Please, let's all do what we can to keep doom and gloom expressions about Bitcoin as a whole, its short term price, and whatever other fallout comes from this to a minimum. There are some who would gladly play on the fearful to make a short term profit.

This document appears to be a real action plan: http://www.scribd.com/doc/209050732/MtGox-Situation-Crisis-Strategy-Draft

Watching as things play out it makes sense. It appears MtGox is transitioning into more competent, professional hands, and will be re-branded as "Gox". This is a big positive for our community, as those with losses in MtGox have a better chance of some recovery with it still in existence. Aside from its problems, it has a very profitable business. The above document estimates existing liabilities at around 120M USD. Consider WhatsApp was just acquired by Facebook for 19 billion, and we're still early days in Bitcoin.

As someone noted in another thread this marks a turning point for Bitcoin, as it moves us further away from fly-by-night scams and amateur hour financial services providers. The MyBitcoin.com wallet scam was replaced by the reputable Coinbase. The debacle of Bitcoinica was replaced by the long stable BitFinex. Out of the ashes of MtGox we as a community will again emerge stronger.

As a community we can support this effort to move past the prior management. Pulling together our influence is great.

Second, we should pre-empt any possible regulation. There has already been volunteer announcements from exchanges for greater transparency of financial records. As a community we can support, applaud, and demand this for the good and protection of the whole ecosystem.

Last, we can do better with education and practice of smarter coin protection and handling. We should always remember to take ultimate responsibility for our own coin handling and financial decisions, but we need to teach others best practices too. Also, let's reward the business with plans that align well with keeping customer coins safe.

[The_Gloomfrost]

Imma have to stop you right there.

1.

The magnitude of this has caught a lot of the community off guard

I have to say that the real 'community', aka frequent visitors to this forum and the subreddit saw this coming MONTHS ago and this was all generally expected. I myself pulled out my 5 BTC from btc-e recently @ $750 and planning to buy back in shortly. I am not a professional trader at all and to me this seemed like the obvious thing to do...

2.

...re-branded as "Gox". This is a big positive for our community,...

No. Gox needs to die. Mark may be the most incompetent CEO but he's not the one who programmed their systems. He's also not the one that sends out confusing and piss-poor excuse of 'customer support'. He's also not the one who handles the interaction between authorities and banks. Their whole team is useless and needs to die in a fire together so we can move on as 'a community'. I am SURE there are angels and intelligent being somewhere in there, and I would shield them and herd them away from the other gox taint. As for their 'profitable business', that profit and surplus will be picked up by competent exchanges. There is no 'loss' to the community at all.

3. That document has not been officially validated. To me, it's just some random doc someone drafted up with maybe one page and one fact being real (maybe).

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The other stuff I actually agree with you on. Carry on preaching.

[safeminer]

well written, but i think the name Gox has been too tainted by this to ever be taken serious again in the older community

[BitCoinNutJob]

well written, but i think the name Gox has been too tainted by this to ever be taken serious again in the older community

gox is fine, fulltiltpoker was bought by pokerstars & runs no problem.  many brands have recovered

[V4Vendettas]

Lol I cant move on because I have no money left but I guess I can do some peaceful reflection or something.

[BitCoinNutJob]

the plan is to return all customer money?

[EvilPanda]

Thankfully had no money on gox, let them die!

[rat]

i stopped at the word "community".

[Elwar]

MtGox not being able to handle a DDOS caused the price to crash about 50% almost a year ago.

MtGox stopped allowing people to withdraw fiat from the exchange.

MtGox stopped allowing people to withdraw bitcoins from the exchange.

Fool me once...

[bitfreak!]

well written, but i think the name Gox has been too tainted by this to ever be taken serious again in the older community

gox is fine, fulltiltpoker was bought by pokerstars & runs no problem.  many brands have recovered

But this is not the first time Mt. Gox has had to recover their brand. A while back they were hacked pretty badly and they had to sell out the business and change management in order to pay back the debts they owed and keep operating as a business. It seems many people aren't aware that they have already done this once and it now it looks like they're going to use the exact same strategy and do it again. But this time it's not going to work because Bitcoin isn't as small as it was back then and a lot more money has been lost/stolen this time compared to last time. They already had their chance to prove they could recover from their mistakes, but now they've just gone and proven how useless they are yet again. It's the last straw. People will not continue to support them. If they do come back and they let people place withdrawals then all that will happen is a run on Mt. Gox.

[acoindr]

Imma have to stop you right there.

1.

The magnitude of this has caught a lot of the community off guard

I have to say that the real 'community', aka frequent visitors to this forum and the subreddit saw this coming MONTHS ago and this was all generally expected. I myself pulled out my 5 BTC from btc-e recently @ $750 and planning to buy back in shortly. I am not a professional trader at all and to me this seemed like the obvious thing to do...

If you look at BTC-e.com price charts right now you'll see what I mean by the magnitude of this catching people off guard.

Certainly people have been speculating about the solvency of MtGox for quite some time. They've had known seizures by the US DHS totaling millions. Still, MtGox at one point was signing up 20K new users per day, and had substantial trade volume. While their finances could have taken hits, it seemed reasonable they could survive over the longer term. I myself rationalized they were profiting from Bitcoin since before it was $0.50 each. Surely they had a amassed a lot of BTC which had now increased substantially quite apart from their normal business profit.

2.

...re-branded as "Gox". This is a big positive for our community,...

No. Gox needs to die. Mark may be the most incompetent CEO but he's not the one who programmed their systems.

He was the CEO. Ultimately the buck stopped with him. All of the successes or failures are direct results of his decisions (or lack thereof). Anyone with money tied up in MtGox would disagree with you they should disappear entirely.

3. That document has not been officially validated. To me, it's just some random doc someone drafted up with maybe one page and one fact being real (maybe).

That's why I used the word "appears" in my post. Regardless, we can choose to try and make the best of the situation or wallow in despair. My post reflects my preference and advice.

[Unacceptable]

Imma have to stop you right there.

1.

The magnitude of this has caught a lot of the community off guard

I have to say that the real 'community', aka frequent visitors to this forum and the subreddit saw this coming MONTHS ago and this was all generally expected. I myself pulled out my 5 BTC from btc-e recently @ $750 and planning to buy back in shortly. I am not a professional trader at all and to me this seemed like the obvious thing to do...

2.

...re-branded as "Gox". This is a big positive for our community,...

No. Gox needs to die. Mark may be the most incompetent CEO but he's not the one who programmed their systems. He's also not the one that sends out confusing and piss-poor excuse of 'customer support'. He's also not the one who handles the interaction between authorities and banks. Their whole team is useless and needs to die in a fire together so we can move on as 'a community'. I am SURE there are angels and intelligent being somewhere in there, and I would shield them and herd them away from the other gox taint. As for their 'profitable business', that profit and surplus will be picked up by competent exchanges. There is no 'loss' to the community at all.

3. That document has not been officially validated. To me, it's just some random doc someone drafted up with maybe one page and one fact being real (maybe).

-----------

The other stuff I actually agree with you on. Carry on preaching.

+1000 Gox should be liquidated,if possible & repay ALL accounts!!!!!  & NEVER come back online!!!!!!!!!!!  

Every SINGLE CRASH has had GOX in it in a big way!!!!!!!!! 

[BitCoinNutJob]

well written, but i think the name Gox has been too tainted by this to ever be taken serious again in the older community

gox is fine, fulltiltpoker was bought by pokerstars & runs no problem.  many brands have recovered

But this is not the first time Mt. Gox has had to recover their brand. A while back they were hacked pretty badly and they had to sell out the business and change management in order to pay back the debts they owed and keep operating as a business. It seems many people aren't aware that they have already done this once and it now it looks like they're going to use the exact same strategy and do it again. But this time it's not going to work because Bitcoin isn't as small as it was back then and a lot more money has been lost/stolen this time compared to last time. They already had their chance to prove they could recover from their mistakes, but now they've just gone and proven how useless they are yet again. It's the last straw. People will not continue to support them. If they do come back and they let people place withdrawals then all that will happen is a run on Mt. Gox.

New people come into bitcoin all the time, i dont think its an issue honestly, most just google 'buy bitcoins' - the new people bring the life to the industry

Get rid of the CEO & have a new team & no problem

[btbrae]

I don't think this is realistic, and is probably fake.

Karpeles is going to be a wanted man, lots of people have lost money, and will be knocking on the doors of whoever is associated with him or MtGox. Nobody will be willing to stick their neck out that far. Just won't happen, sorry.

Edit: If it is true (Mtgox changed their source code), then people will still need to be reimbursed.

[bitfreak!]

the new people bring the life to the industry

What you mean is that new people bring the money to the scammers...

Get rid of the CEO & have a new team & no problem

That's exactly what people said last time they did this. Do we really need to go through it one more time?

[BitCoinNutJob]

the new people bring the life to the industry

What you mean is that new people bring the money to the scammers...

Get rid of the CEO & have a new team & no problem

That's exactly what people said last time they did this. Do we really need to go through it one more time?

Customers arent scammers.

And if the customers wanna see 100% of their money this is what has to happen. 

I support removal of old gox team.   Its kinda irrelevant to argue anyway, it will either happen or not.

[bitfreak!]

Customers arent scammers.

I didn't say customers are scammers, I said new customers bring the money to the scammers.

And if the customers wanna see 100% of their money this is what has to happen.

That is a fair point but you don't know it'll work. They might just mess up again and lose even more money in the process. In my opinion they should just use the assets they do have to pay back their customers in the fairest manner possible and then call it a day.

[Sheldor333]

I do believe exchanges should be regulated, but just enough so there is not any tempering and misuse. I there are a lot of greedy people if you give them money there is a change they will gamble it and you will never see it again. Other than that there should be no other regulations. 

[acoindr]

Get rid of the CEO & have a new team & no problem

That's exactly what people said last time they did this. Do we really need to go through it one more time?

For those claiming it's the easiest thing in the world to find competent leadership may I remind everyone Sony is a multinational conglomerate corporation with a current market cap around 18 billion USD. Sony absolutely dwarfs MtGox, and yet:


PlayStation Network hack: why it took Sony seven days to tell the world

Sony has admitted that it shut down its PlayStation Network last week because it discovered a "non-gaming" intrusion into the system, but had not realised until late on Tuesday – following forensic security testing – that the breach had led to the theft of the data of the 77 million users

Sony PS3 Hacked (again): All Future Games Decryptable, No Solution Possible

Sony has another public image meltdown on its hands. According to a report by Playstationlifestyle.net, a group of hackers known as ‘The Three Musketeers’ claim to have discovered a security key that could potentially make all existing consoles able to decrypt current and future games and use custom firmware.

Securing regular data has got to be a hell of a lot easier than securing untraceable bitcoins. Need I mention the recent Target hack resulting in financial and personal data of 110 million shoppers being stolen?

[BitCoinNutJob]

Customers arent scammers.

I didn't say customers are scammers, I said new customers bring the money to the scammers.

And if the customers wanna see 100% of their money this is what has to happen.

That is a fair point but you don't know it'll work. They might just mess up again and lose even more money in the process. In my opinion they should just use the assets they do have to pay back their customers in the fairest manner possible and then call it a day.

If they have a new team & remove CEO then gox will be just as trustworthy as any other exchange.  The past not really important.  

If its the same CEO im not in support.  

Winklevoss twins buying would be awesome.