Was MT Gox just a ponzi?

[coinbuyer2580]

While reading about the demise of the exchange and the supposed loss of 700k Bitcoins I realized that the whole thing seems like a collapsing ponzi pyramid and not just a case of total ineptness. If it can be conclusively proven that this was a ponzi scheme there is no doubt that some hefty prison sentences will be handed out.

obviously this is just conjecture, but please let me know what you think.

No, not a Ponzi. Technically, Mt. Gox was a bucket shop. A bucket shop is a broker which pretends to be executing transactions on an exchange or as an exchange, but is really faking it, trading against its customers, usually with the customer's money. That's Mt. Gox.

The term "bucket shop" is almost unknown today, because, in the US, that particular scam was shut down in the 1920s.

Most of the people involved with Bitcoin don't know enough financial history. Just about every scam and failure associated with Bitcoins has been seen before, many times.

[roslinpl]

While reading about the demise of the exchange and the supposed loss of 700k Bitcoins I realized that the whole thing seems like a collapsing ponzi pyramid and not just a case of total ineptness. If it can be conclusively proven that this was a ponzi scheme there is no doubt that some hefty prison sentences will be handed out.

obviously this is just conjecture, but please let me know what you think.

I do think it is a nice = between Gox and Ponzis

But I believe that Gox will rise up again and all users will be paid for their problems etc...

All this Gox made such a bad media carma. ..

[whtchocla7e]

I would say Mt Gox was a victim of a broken protocol.

[backtrackit]

I would say Mt Gox was a victim of a broken protocol.

lol epic trolling 

[Bigeyeone]

So many people just love to use words like ponzi scheme and pyramid scheme, but really dont know what they talking about, no way Gox was a ponzi scheme.

A ponzi scheme is where a scammer pretends to have some super profitable investment scheme and promises poeple huge profits if they buy a share in his company or bonds or investment fund or whatever, while in fact all he is doing is paying the old investors with the money coming in from new investors and when the moment comes he can not find any more new investors the whole thing will just collapse like any pyramid scheme.

How does this resemble anything GOX did ? It does not

Gox might have been scamming people, but it they were it was the most simple scam, just take your money and run, but chances are they were just incompetent, first with how they dealt with financial regulators and then how they dealt with the transaction malleability issue.

[pungopete468]

No, just mis-managed and shady.

They should have filed chapter 11 after the Silk Road and then worked out a repayment plan with their account holders. Then they could operate a profitable exchange and still allow USD withdrawals.

[coinbuyer2580]

So many people just love to use words like ponzi scheme and pyramid scheme, but really dont know what they talking about, no way Gox was a ponzi scheme.

A ponzi scheme is where a scammer pretends to have some super profitable investment scheme and promises poeple huge profits if they buy a share in his company or bonds or investment fund or whatever, while in fact all he is doing is paying the old investors with the money coming in from new investors and when the moment comes he can not find any more new investors the whole thing will just collapse like any pyramid scheme.

How does this resemble anything GOX did ? It does not

MT Gox was openly allowing people to trade an item that did not exist. The were obviously paying withdrawals from fresh deposits since they were missing more than 700 000 coins that were still being traded. That is a ponzi my friend.

[Bigeyeone]

So many people just love to use words like ponzi scheme and pyramid scheme, but really dont know what they talking about, no way Gox was a ponzi scheme.

A ponzi scheme is where a scammer pretends to have some super profitable investment scheme and promises poeple huge profits if they buy a share in his company or bonds or investment fund or whatever, while in fact all he is doing is paying the old investors with the money coming in from new investors and when the moment comes he can not find any more new investors the whole thing will just collapse like any pyramid scheme.

How does this resemble anything GOX did ? It does not

MT Gox was openly allowing people to trade an item that did not exist. The were obviously paying withdrawals from fresh deposits since they were missing more than 700 000 coins that were still being traded. That is a ponzi my friend.

well if you wanna redefine what a ponzi scheme actually is, yeah then your right lol

Like if I define that if something has wheels then it is a car yeah then a bicycle is a car all right. lol

[bomb7]

Not a ponzi scheme, but a mindboggling level of incompetence, coupled with desperate flailing once they realized the extent of their incompetence.

They did continue accepting deposits up until the very moment they went offline, which is extremely dirty. But that alone doesn`t define a ponzi scheme.

[mysidia]

MT Gox was openly allowing people to trade an item that did not exist. The were obviously paying withdrawals from fresh deposits since they were missing more than 700 000 coins that were still being traded. That is a ponzi my friend.

As long as there were both a buyer and a seller on each side of the trade,  and Gox was only a middleman collecting fees, then no... it wasn't a ponzi.

Bad accounting,  and/or having your assets stolen through a fraud conducted by unrelated third parties does not make your business a ponzi.

[hostmaster]

it's not about being ponzi but about being bad organization. MTgox verification processes was taking more than 4 weeks. This alone lead the real problem. Being stupid!

[Pangia]

I asked this same question back in July 2013 because the signs were there. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=258170.0

However, the majority of the respondents believed that MTGOX wasn't a ponzi. Sadly, those Gox believers are most likely without shirts right now.

[igl00]

mtgox had no BTC like for knox has no gold to back USD.

same scheme

[BrandonQ1995]

So many people just love to use words like ponzi scheme and pyramid scheme, but really dont know what they talking about, no way Gox was a ponzi scheme.

A ponzi scheme is where a scammer pretends to have some super profitable investment scheme and promises poeple huge profits if they buy a share in his company or bonds or investment fund or whatever, while in fact all he is doing is paying the old investors with the money coming in from new investors and when the moment comes he can not find any more new investors the whole thing will just collapse like any pyramid scheme.

How does this resemble anything GOX did ? It does not

Gox might have been scamming people, but it they were it was the most simple scam, just talk your money and run, but chances are they were just incompetent, first with how they dealt with financial regulators and then how they dealt with the transaction malleability issue.

Urgh love that you said this, people just love throwing around the words ponzi/pyramid scheme. Maybe it makes them feel smarter or something. Mt.Gox fucked up, but this is no scheme.

[coinbuyer2580]

MT Gox was not a fuck up, for a time the value of the coins that were being traded but did not exist was close to 700 million dollars! That is not an oversight, it was deliberate.

Ponzi, pyramid, bubble however you want to label it, investor fraud is the name of the game. These people were accepting payments to allow trading of something that did not exist all while holding every deposit in trust and skimming with fees.

[Imbatman]

I'm glad that Mt. Gox rejected my attempt to create an account with them, as I sent the exact same identification to Bitstamp simultaneously and was accepted by them.

My question to this audience is -- how concerned should I be that my SSN is floating around Mt. Gox's systems?

Obviously Mt. Gox has possession of a ton of other people's SSN information too, but I'm curious to hear some thoughts.

Concerned, Not Concerned?  Thanks

[keithers]

I would say Mt Gox was a victim of a broken protocol.

This has to be a level...

[Bigeyeone]

I would say Mt Gox was a victim of a broken protocol.

This has to be a level...

Yeah a broken protocol that work just fine for everybody else but GOX LMAO

[LostDutchman]

So many people just love to use words like ponzi scheme and pyramid scheme, but really dont know what they talking about, no way Gox was a ponzi scheme.

A ponzi scheme is where a scammer pretends to have some super profitable investment scheme and promises poeple huge profits if they buy a share in his company or bonds or investment fund or whatever, while in fact all he is doing is paying the old investors with the money coming in from new investors and when the moment comes he can not find any more new investors the whole thing will just collapse like any pyramid scheme.

How does this resemble anything GOX did ? It does not

Gox might have been scamming people, but it they were it was the most simple scam, just take your money and run, but chances are they were just incompetent, first with how they dealt with financial regulators and then how they dealt with the transaction malleability issue.

Thank you for your insightful and accurate post.

My $.02.

[Soros Shorts]

What OP was alleging is embezzlement, not Ponzi. Jeez!