NO PROOF MtGox is insolvent - Document possibly a Hoax? - STOP THE FUD!

[itsunderstood]

[...]

But i am not ever trusting the community if this doesnt get fixed.

You mean thieving?  It tends to lurk right next to "We do IT in a fucked up half assed stupid fashion."

Also, I work in IT, so for me, Gox was obviously a lego operation.  

But, see, TRUST is what all great thieves, exploit.  So, perhaps cryptocoin is like a battleground of theiving shitbags versus regular good people who do not present a false face to the world?  I treat it as such, simply because, cryptocoin like major corporate brands, will surf through WW3 and come out the other end of it looking even better.  Just like g00g, mitsubishi, krupp. etc.

[nwfella]

Bottom line.  There are only two possibilities here:

1.) They are in fact insolvent which indicates absolute incompetence.
2.) Outright fraud.

[shadyz]

Bottom line.  There are only two possibilities here:

1.) They are in fact insolvent which indicates absolute incompetence.
2.) Outright fraud.

Actually 1 is not an option, because noone is so retarded as to lose 99% of their funds under management.

[bassclef]

Cannot emphasize enough how huge this is for bitcoin adoption going forward.  Those who simply want gox to die are missing the big picture.  If gox customers are ultimately cheated, there will be a sell-off, but it probably won't be that big as some of this is already factored in.  Many in the public as well as companies, hell even the media, were starting to talk about bitcoin in a positive way.  They will turn and run in a heartbeat - they haven't yet bc technically no one has yet been cheated - they and we are all waiting to see what happens.  All the "I told you bitcoin was dangerous (or a fraud)" will be out in full force.  Media will be brutal and gov regulation will come down like a hammer.  Bitcoin's adoption will stop cold in its tracks, and the public, which was always worried about security, will say "no thanks, I don't need this product that badly"  and bitcoin will unfortunately grind down slowly to nothing for many many years to come

I totally agree with you IF this is all true.

The point I am making is I think we are already doing a lot of the damage described above even if it all turns out to not be true. The journalists are already feverishly writing the "I told you so" articles as we speak, I am sure.

I agree with both of you. The media shitstorm will blow over, like it always has before. The new kids and bitcoin non-believers surely are having a field day with this one, and aren't helping its image, that's for sure. But it's inevitable and happens over and over again and bitcoin emerges resilient as the coins are distributed to stronger, smarter hands during the market downturns. Once the market turns bull, the accumulation phase will begin again as many clueless investors buy in, and the cycle repeats itself.

Last summer I witnessed this on a smaller scale with the ASIC chip preorder debacle. Yifu Guo, a trusted community member, basically screwed the pooch and didn't deliver his brand new ASIC chips on schedule, thereby screwing preorder companies that had invested much and taken customers' money for assembly. (These are mining rigs, so time is money. Also they were the first ASICs so time was big money.) For a while, he was one of the most hated people on the forum (as were some of the assemblers). I've never seen more profanity and name calling, even death threats. Money and greed turn people into absolute monsters. In the end, though, most people got their money back (Yifu issued refunds) and that saga is long behind us.

Overall, given the lack of hard, concrete evidence and the record amount of FUD (both here and on reddit) I could go either way on Gox. I know many of you are angry. Just remember that this is a cutting edge technology in its infancy, and you're lucky to be part if the IPO. If you can't handle the stress, maybe Bitcoin isn't for you.

Regarding Gox, I feel for those who lost a lot of money. Try to keep things in perspective, have a little patience, and hope for the best.

[cAPSLOCK]

Lol...  Youre sort of right OP.

No proof of insolvency... not as much as proof of near total BANKRUPTCY.

[smoothrunnings]

Everyone will just have to face the facts that MtGox has successfully lined their pockets with your Bitcoins and gotten away with it, and now with gox.com they are going to do it a second time.

[frito]

It seems like everyone is running round like like lunatics declaring MtGox is insolvent and dead without any solid proof. I am not saying this may not the case but lets at least wait for a solid bit of evidence - either an announcement from MtGox or proof that the document going around claiming MtGox lost 700,000+ BTC is real. Otherwise we are shooting ourselves in the foot. The media is and will have a field day on these claims and if later they prove to be false the short term damage will have already been done.

The document in question does not look at all professional to me and no one really seems to know where it really came from. What if it was just created by someone wanting cheap bitcoin? I would say that they have done an exceptional job of spreading FUD if that was the case.

Its amazing how many forum members come out of the woodwork claiming this is the end of Bitcoin, announcing class action lawsuits against MtGox, sending MK death threats etc. None of this is helping the situation.

STOP the FUD.

In my opinion Bitcoin is here to stay with or without MtGox!! Lets just get on with it.

All is but speculation at this moment.
There is no denying the funny string on the blank gox site about the acquisition thou.

[ISAWHIM]

Lol...  Youre sort of right OP.
No proof of insolvency... not as much as proof of near total BANKRUPTCY.

Near total bankruptcy... is that like near total death... or "not dead", or "not bankrupt".

Gox is being nailed by spammers, hackers and noobs with DDOS attacks. That is why support is down (shut-down by zendesk themselves), and twitter (shut-down by twitter themselves), and why they moved the office (at request of the other tennants and land-lord), and have disabled "logins" (to protect you from someone possibly having logged-in after having stolen your credentials, after being infected following these FUD articles listed on infected websites.)

The DNS is still there, the HTTPs cert-auth is still there, the offices are still there and filled with working employees...

The only ones completely clueless about what is going on, anywhere, is the bitcoin foundation. They were clueless about the last resignation, and this one, and the many others that will follow. They are just ad-space to advertise your BTC business. They don't actually do anything, or know anything.

They removed the word "insolvent", because I am sure they were told to, by lawyers, since that is slander without proof or knowledge of the situation. Just as I am sure BTCe will remove the word "bankrupt" from the statement they made. Of all the people in the loop, BTCe would hardly be one of those even remotely close to any loop. They just repeated what they were told, or they are the ones spreading the FUD themselves. (Think about that for a second... If they had a clue what is going on, they would not have released a statement like that. That statement alone, shows they are clueless.)

The fact that Gox is down, and still, nothing has changed, only confirms that "Gox's issues" actually had nothing to do with anything on any other exchange. All exchanges have been falling for almost a month now. Weeks before all this crap about Gox rolled-out.

Gox was purposely being held down, by someone simply cashing-out, at any cost, because he/they could. He/they were willing to cash-out for less, and we were all willing to buy those discount coins from him, for less. No-one was forced to pay less. There was no crash. We were all making out like bandits. We will again, once gox opens the gates.

Then the price on all exchanges will go back up, as less people become unable to sell for less, and more people are willing to pay a little more money for a little less BTC.

I am sure there were a few pissed thieves, with coins stuck in the exchange, who had not been identified yet, or had, and were just not "called-out". You can't prosecute them for taking BTC, as easily as you can for prosecuting them for "attempting to launder into cash". Letting them get less cash was the smartest thing to do. They didn't get any cash that anyone wasn't willing to part with. We all voluntarily gave-up our cash for those discount BTC. In the end, he does not actually get that cash, and chances are, some govt will.

Shit happens... Deal with it.

Do you all freak-out this much on the weekends when the banks close?

Would you freak-out this much if the bank holding your money closed, because they had threats of robbers coming to rob the place?

No, You would be glad that they shut the doors, told you to go home, and wait it out. Seriously, would you rather they kept the doors open, and you would just HOPE the robbers don't come before you, or while you are there?

Go to the park, come back in a few days... Once we all have something solid. It is not like the guy is going to go anywhere, or spend any money. What is he going to do, use his bank, pay in cash, hide in Atlantis or Zimbabwe? I hear USD gets you a lot there!

[Jeronimus]

Bottom line.  There are only two possibilities here:

1.) They are in fact insolvent which indicates absolute incompetence.
2.) Outright fraud.

None of these options apply.

There is a third option which makes most sense

3.) Mission to deliberately harm/kill BTC - Mission taker Karpeles

the insolvent theory makes no sense, because noone can be THAT incompetent.

outright fraud makes no sense because the exchange had so many options to fraud people of their money, WITHOUT killing itself. Simple example, by keeping up the withdrawal delays of USD they themselves or via insider friends cooperating with them, were able to almost instant withdraw and therefore do some insane arbitrage as in buying at bistamp/btc-e/coinbase and sell for 10-20% up. Rinse and repeat.
Many other ways to use the exchange power in order to profit, like for example doing your own trades without fees, allowing you to profit on the smallest differences in buy/sell and many more i am not going to list here.

So fraud option is not an option either.

To me, it only leaves the option of deliberate trying to harm BTC. And if you look at the way karpeles acted, this is the most likely option BY FAR.

[Lauda]

@ISAWHIM you're a Gox fanboy?

[btc237ftw]

Near total bankruptcy... is that like near total death... or "not dead", or "not bankrupt".

Gox is being nailed by spammers, hackers and noobs with DDOS attacks. That is why support is down (shut-down by zendesk themselves), and twitter (shut-down by twitter themselves), and why they moved the office (at request of the other tennants and land-lord), and have disabled "logins" (to protect you from someone possibly having logged-in after having stolen your credentials, after being infected following these FUD articles listed on infected websites.)

The DNS is still there, the HTTPs cert-auth is still there, the offices are still there and filled with working employees...

The only ones completely clueless about what is going on, anywhere, is the bitcoin foundation. They were clueless about the last resignation, and this one, and the many others that will follow. They are just ad-space to advertise your BTC business. They don't actually do anything, or know anything.

They removed the word "insolvent", because I am sure they were told to, by lawyers, since that is slander without proof or knowledge of the situation. Just as I am sure BTCe will remove the word "bankrupt" from the statement they made. Of all the people in the loop, BTCe would hardly be one of those even remotely close to any loop. They just repeated what they were told, or they are the ones spreading the FUD themselves. (Think about that for a second... If they had a clue what is going on, they would not have released a statement like that. That statement alone, shows they are clueless.)

The fact that Gox is down, and still, nothing has changed, only confirms that "Gox's issues" actually had nothing to do with anything on any other exchange. All exchanges have been falling for almost a month now. Weeks before all this crap about Gox rolled-out.

Gox was purposely being held down, by someone simply cashing-out, at any cost, because he/they could. He/they were willing to cash-out for less, and we were all willing to buy those discount coins from him, for less. No-one was forced to pay less. There was no crash. We were all making out like bandits. We will again, once gox opens the gates.

Then the price on all exchanges will go back up, as less people become unable to sell for less, and more people are willing to pay a little more money for a little less BTC.

I am sure there were a few pissed thieves, with coins stuck in the exchange, who had not been identified yet, or had, and were just not "called-out". You can't prosecute them for taking BTC, as easily as you can for prosecuting them for "attempting to launder into cash". Letting them get less cash was the smartest thing to do. They didn't get any cash that anyone wasn't willing to part with. We all voluntarily gave-up our cash for those discount BTC. In the end, he does not actually get that cash, and chances are, some govt will.

Shit happens... Deal with it.

Do you all freak-out this much on the weekends when the banks close?

Would you freak-out this much if the bank holding your money closed, because they had threats of robbers coming to rob the place?

No, You would be glad that they shut the doors, told you to go home, and wait it out. Seriously, would you rather they kept the doors open, and you would just HOPE the robbers don't come before you, or while you are there?

Go to the park, come back in a few days... Once we all have something solid. It is not like the guy is going to go anywhere, or spend any money. What is he going to do, use his bank, pay in cash, hide in Atlantis or Zimbabwe? I hear USD gets you a lot there!

Very smart, well written.

By the way, I think that there is good chance for rebranding and a different team taking over (MT)Gox.com and within a month everything will be ok.

Some points and evidence:
1. The leaked document was published Before the website halted trading and shut down. While the document itself has a schedule for the shut down and halt of trade to the exact time (I.E morning time in Japan, Tuesday the 25th).
2. The Gox.com evidence is pretty strong as well.
3. The amount of Bitcoins that was traded during the super low prices on MTGox are around 750,000 btc.
4. Hours before the document was leaked MTGox had a surge of bidding coming in for $100-$110, it was about 15-20k BTC bidding war. As if someone("s") knew people are going to sell massively to those low prices. Furthermore, after the price went down and those 15-20k BTCs were sold on the way down, another ~10K were bought on the way up. This was a super unusual activity in terms of size, even for these last weeks which had huge volumes. This means there is a connection between the document and the trade on MTGox, which clearly has a link to a potential success with the #1 bullet on the document itself.
5. MTGox said that they want to keep "will provide more information as soon as possible to keep everyone in the loop."  Which sounds like there is something secretive going on behind the scenes that only few knows about. It fits well with a new team taking over or a major security issue or both.
6. When a company say what MTGox has been saying in the past few weeks about re-enabling withdrawals repeatedly... They have liabilities, legal liabilities, because in a future court case if it can be demonstrated that they had no way and/or intention on doing so, then they mislead the public using official statements. That can very easily help a "bad faith" liability charge to be accepted in court which would make the management personally responsible. In other words, it is inconsistent with many of the FUD being spread, while it is very consistent with a new team taking over and/or making a joint venture to rebrand and/or restructure etc.
7. The document suggested that the support of MTGox will be available during the shutdown in order to allow "customers" to ask for their accounts' history/records etc, which is of extreme importance(!) and I sent an email using the still technically working support and got verification email and automatic responses as if everything is still working in terms of support. I haven't had a personal reply from the support, but again it shows consistency with the document.

There are a few more notes to be taken, but I think I listed enough,

Obviously, as I do hold some GOXBTC I do also Hope, it is the case and that us, MTGox's customers will see our money back. I really do.
By the way, at first I accepted it was all lost, but now with all the new evidence surfacing, it seems hope is not lost, there is a good chance that a rebrand and a new team is exactly what is going on, on top of making the customers whole.

[cAPSLOCK]

Near total bankruptcy... is that like near total death... or "not dead", or "not bankrupt".

If someone were to beat you nearly to death it would be a significant thing.

Today we have transcripts of the CEO admitting the "crisis management" document is "pretty much all true".

<JonWickedFire> Is that Crisis Strategy Draft even legit?
[11:04] <MagicalTux> more or less
[11:05] <MagicalTux> as the name suggests it's a draft, and it's a bunch of proposals to deal with the issue at hand, not things that are actually planned and/or done
[11:06] <MagicalTux> this said this document was not produced by MtGox

That means Mt Gox either sold over 700,000 BTC short, lost them, stole them, or were robbed of them.

I personally believe it is a combination of mostly the first and last items in that list.

Comparing this situation to a bank closing on the weekend is IDIOTIC.  This is a failure of such grave proportions is will be talked about for ages.  It has set bitcoin back YEARS in acceptance and now it is all about damage control.  We are talking tsunami damage, not a little storm.

I personally think bitcoin survives even this.  But it's going to take a long time.

[dancingnancy]

Near total bankruptcy... is that like near total death... or "not dead", or "not bankrupt".

If someone were to beat you nearly to death it would be a significant thing.

Today we have transcripts of the CEO admitting the "crisis management" document is "pretty much all true".

<JonWickedFire> Is that Crisis Strategy Draft even legit?
[11:04] <MagicalTux> more or less
[11:05] <MagicalTux> as the name suggests it's a draft, and it's a bunch of proposals to deal with the issue at hand, not things that are actually planned and/or done
[11:06] <MagicalTux> this said this document was not produced by MtGox

That means Mt Gox either sold over 700,000 BTC short, lost them, stole them, or were robbed of them.

I personally believe it is a combination of mostly the first and last items in that list.

Comparing this situation to a bank closing on the weekend is IDIOTIC.  This is a failure of such grave proportions is will be talked about for ages.  It has set bitcoin back YEARS in acceptance and now it is all about damage control.  We are talking tsunami damage, not a little storm.

I personally think bitcoin survives even this.  But it's going to take a long time.

He said this document was not produced by mt gox?

[maqifrnswa]

Today we have transcripts of the CEO admitting the "crisis management" document is "pretty much all true".

<JonWickedFire> Is that Crisis Strategy Draft even legit?
[11:04] <MagicalTux> more or less
[11:05] <MagicalTux> as the name suggests it's a draft, and it's a bunch of proposals to deal with the issue at hand, not things that are actually planned and/or done
[11:06] <MagicalTux> this said this document was not produced by MtGox

That means Mt Gox either sold over 700,000 BTC short, lost them, stole them, or were robbed of them.

I personally believe it is a combination of mostly the first and last items in that list.

Comparing this situation to a bank closing on the weekend is IDIOTIC.  This is a failure of such grave proportions is will be talked about for ages.  It has set bitcoin back YEARS in acceptance and now it is all about damage control.  We are talking tsunami damage, not a little storm.

I personally think bitcoin survives even this.  But it's going to take a long time.

He said this document was not produced by mt gox?

He said it was more or less true, but not produced by mt gox. It's obvious a draft of something produced for mt gox (consultant, contractor, investor, whatever) since Karpeles knew of it and what it was back when it was a secret. It also could be a red herring produced by gox to "leak" the story prior to it breaking, and can hide behind "we never made any statement" but still get a story out.

Document is not a hoax. STOP THE FUD FUD!

[repentance]

Bottom line.  There are only two possibilities here:

1.) They are in fact insolvent which indicates absolute incompetence.
2.) Outright fraud.

Actually 1 is not an option, because noone is so retarded as to lose 99% of their funds under management.

LOL.  I take it you've never worked for small business.  Even huge companies lose staggering amounts of money on a regular basis due to flawed accounting processes.  It's even more common in smaller businesses where an owner/operator randomly chooses an accounting system they like when the business is small and never upgrades the accounting system as the business grows.  Throw in a lack of independent oversight of accounts and it's frighteningly easy for a business to run out of money before they realised any was missing.

You could, however, argue that the failure to institute proper accounting systems (which would have instantly revealed the discrepancy between the book balances of their BTC accounts and the actual balances as confirmed by the blockchain) constituted negligence on the part of MtGox.  Many smaller businesses than MtGox hold large amounts of funds belonging to others (real estate agents, lawyers, accountants, etc) and manage to ensure that the actual balances in their accounts reconcile with the numbers in their spreadsheets. 

It's shockingly easy to automate the reconciliation and verification process so that any discrepancies generate an immediate alert and no further transactions can take place until the problem is sorted.  In the 21st century, that verification process should be nearly constant and discrepancies detected in almost real time.

[itsunderstood]

[...]

and bitcoin will unfortunately grind down slowly to nothing for many many years to come

I don't disagree with your post except this last if/else part.

I think warfare, globally, is the real value of cryptocoin.  Capital flight has never been available to the plebes, when any Great and Total War has broken out.  So, when the next Great and Total War breaks out, cryptocoin will have value in terms of blood, property, and life: Things that flee a front of war, and wartime capital restrictions.

In terms of WW2, it is very interesting to see where Shicklegruber let money flow out of Germany.  Very interesting indeed.  Also, the term "reparations" is kinda what you are looking for.  I mean, the document asks other coinholders to 'repair' the Goxxies?  I am not saying I disagree at all.  But, the value of cryptocoin is capital flight, plain and simple, that's why it will go up in the future, when wartime capital restrictions happen overnight, as they do.