Source close to potential investors: 3 companies bidding on Gox

[Indamuck]

You guys are all assuming a purchaser will necessarily make all customers whole. That doesn't look realistic. The best Gox can hope for is to get bids/proposals, and go with the best they are offered.

Karpeles doesn't have a choice - he is a gaping liability to Gox and will get f*cked in any transaction. it won't be milk and honey for customers either. Maybe a quarter cup of milk, but certainly no honey ...

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[zhangweiwu]

I think you are wrong.

With a trusted new CEO, like gmaxwell or antonopoulos MtGox would be far more worth than just 300m.

It would be the easiest way for investors to get hold of a major exchange with high enough volume.

I agree. But I am more conservative, thinking there are only less than 30 people in the world who has the reputation to buy MtGox and keep it running.

My speculation: This personage should bid with $1, Mark is too greedy to agree, the deadlock goes on for a month, and this personage decide the brand's reputation is further damaged beyond redemption and give up bidding, Mark capitulate and agree to sell for $1, but it's too late, then he files bankruptcy.

[Jeronimus]

I think you are wrong.

With a trusted new CEO, like gmaxwell or antonopoulos MtGox would be far more worth than just 300m.

It would be the easiest way for investors to get hold of a major exchange with high enough volume.

I agree. But I am more conservative, thinking there are only less than 30 people in the world who has the reputation to buy MtGox and keep it running.

My speculation: This personage should bid with $1, Mark is too greedy to agree, the deadlock goes on for a month, and this personage decide the brand's reputation is further damaged beyond redemption and give up bidding, Mark capitulate and agree to sell for $1, but it's too late, then he files bankruptcy.

Karpeles has no choice, there will be too much pressure on him from people having serious funds in Gox. They will soon see as well that this is a reasonable solution to possibly get their funds out.
Whatever business Karpeles touches from this day, will turn to dirt. He adds negative value to a business.

Maybe they will have to put some money in to get this parasite out once and for all, he doesn't deserve, but sometimes you have to dance with the devil to get to something better.

At the same time, there are many early BTC adopters which have immense amounts of bitcoins they were honorable enough to keep instead of flooding the market and crash the price.

They would love to invest their BTC in a business that would on top restore BTC's reputation and give their remaining coins more value in the process i would guess. Also with a very good chance of profiting from it in the next 5 years unless something more sinister happens in the BTC world.

They will also see very quickly that this can be done only with a new fully trusted CEO by the community which will be given full control of how the exchange runs without strings attached.
I named two candidates which would be perfect in my opinion, however i have no clue if they are even interested.

There are certainly more issues as in how feasible this is in terms of legal issues. I am no lawyer, and i do not have all the data related to gox.

This is just my take on what i would consider perfect both for the new investors and those having funds stuck in the exchange.

Personally i have nothing in MtGox and drew out all i had long ago when they started delaying withdrawals, but i won't hide that it is in my interest for BTC to thrive as i am holding a medium sized amount of BTC as well as me considering BTC a great way to escape the quantitative easing (money printing) of the FED and the likes.

[Jeronimus]

Adding to the above i said. The new investors could be those having funds stuck in Gox.

They would have to get in contact with infamous Karpeles and get him to sign a contract to pass the ownership to those that have funds stuck on gox in the appropriate percentage relative to their funds in there.

Then they would have to vote on a new CEO, whoever they think would be viewed as the most trustworthy by the community as well as being willing to do the job.

In the long run, having a share in a big exchange that is run by a trusted member of the community they are very likely to even draw out profits of this currently miserable situation.

As i said, i am no lawyer, and my words should be taken with a pint of salt. I am just trying to add my 2 cents and state my view so some might potentially benefit of this.

edit: The exchange when opening up again, could trade shares on top of just BTC, so those who do not want to keep their share, could directly trade it for BTC and get out of it.

[voyo]

That could be huge - Exchange driven and owned by the community.
I think many of us would be glad to pay for such shares, even it that would be worth only 0.001 % or so.
I hope this is possible, even considering all the obstacles and problems we should be able to vote for and choose new management, CEO etc.
We should put some pressure on MK to make this happen...

[rmines]

It's totally wrong that another company could get ahold of Gox and we would see it restart 

[mgroenouwe]

It's totally wrong that another company could get ahold of Gox and we would see it restart 

Why? With the right people it could turn everything... Furthermore it could be a once-in-a-lifetime business-opportunity for a big company (eg. bank, PSP) to step in...

[rmines]

Because they have caused enough damage to the bitcoin community. Their name just can't be somehow 'clean' again after a takeover by another party.

[mgroenouwe]

Because they have caused enough damage to the bitcoin community. Their name just can't be somehow 'clean' again after a takeover by another party.

I think with good rebranding (gox.com) and the right team they could turn the clock.

And NOT fix things will damage the bitcoin community much more. Do you think people will invest/use Bitcoins in the nearby future if they said "too bad, bye bye" ?

[rmines]

You don't need to quote me if you're the first to reply.

You still haven't explained why new potential investors would take over gox..instead of starting a new initiative under a new name.
Right..that's why the current exchange rates are already at the level before gox went down?

[mgroenouwe]

Uhm, what about the 550.000(?) verified accounts? That's worth something. Apart from the numbers it costs a shitload of time to check all the data and paperwork.

And I think how bad or worse Empty Gox was, they were still in the top 3 of the world.

[Jeronimus]

You don't need to quote me if you're the first to reply.

You still haven't explained why new potential investors would take over gox..instead of starting a new initiative under a new name.
Right..that's why the current exchange rates are already at the level before gox went down?

Because they would get access to the servers and software running this exchange plus the customers and volume IF and only IF a new trusted CEO would lead it. Many old customers which left when the withdrawal delays appeared would return possibly if they trusted the new CEO.

If they go by your option, they would be just one out of many new exchanges out there, with little chance of ever getting to the volumes MtGox had.

MtGox is infamous now, mainly because Karpeles runs it and because of the lost funds. Both of those issues however would be fixed the way i proposed it.
So if those issues were to be fixed, then who would NOT want to hold a share of an exchange with high volumes and a bright future?


You think you can just start a new exchange and get all the volume? You won't, because you need volume in order to get new customers which you will never have as there are already other exchanges which offer that like bitstamp and btc-e.

With MtGox it is a completely other scenario. With the right steps, it's old volume can return and even surpass it when withdrawals work without delays.

[V4Vendettas]

Right now this seems about the only hope I can find as a Goxxxed customer.




  cant believe I just right clicked and added Goxxxed to my browsers dictionary FML  

[BITCOIN-PIZZA-DAY]

You guys are all assuming a purchaser will necessarily make all customers whole. That doesn't look realistic. The best Gox can hope for is to get bids/proposals, and go with the best they are offered.

Karpeles doesn't have a choice - he is a gaping liability to Gox and will get f*cked in any transaction. it won't be milk and honey for customers either. Maybe a quarter cup of milk, but certainly no honey ...

You can't buy a company without the liabilities. Mtgox has to declare bankruptcy, negotiate with the creditors and then get buyed by someone to get rid off the debt or a large portion of it.

At the moment it looks like a bailout buy.

[V4Vendettas]

They would only have to declare bankruptcy if they are bankrupt. I'm still searching away for solid evidence this is the case if you have any help the whole community out and post it. Granted there is a metricshitton of circumstantial evidence saying so  Still would be nice to know for sure.

[Aditya]

Some IRC Chatter:

[NUFCrichard]

If someone buys Mt.Gox and decides to make good on debts, assuming the rumours are true and they lost 750kBTC, how exactly are they going to get people their BTCs?
People say it's $400mil, try buying 750kBTC from somewhere without effecting the price!  It would surely rise greatly, maybe even to $1000 making increasing their $ debt towards $750mil!

I guess they would have to offer cash for BTC at the market rate or a % of that rate.

[T.Stuart]

If someone buys Mt.Gox and decides to make good on debts, assuming the rumours are true and they lost 750kBTC, how exactly are they going to get people their BTCs?
People say it's $400mil, try buying 750kBTC from somewhere without effecting the price!  It would surely rise greatly, maybe even to $1000 making increasing their $ debt towards $750mil!

I guess they would have to offer cash for BTC at the market rate or a % of that rate.

Best-case scenario the new acquirer offers between 100 to 200 $ per BTC. But I fear I'm dreaming here.

[BITCOIN-PIZZA-DAY]

If someone buys Mt.Gox and decides to make good on debts, assuming the rumours are true and they lost 750kBTC, how exactly are they going to get people their BTCs?
People say it's $400mil, try buying 750kBTC from somewhere without effecting the price!  It would surely rise greatly, maybe even to $1000 making increasing their $ debt towards $750mil!

I guess they would have to offer cash for BTC at the market rate or a % of that rate.

Volume is very high right now on all exchanges, someone could be already trying to grab enough coins. There are some companies out there who have the kind of money and are willing to invest in the future of bitcoin. High risk but also high reward.

Mayzus would make sense as the twobitidiot mentioned big plans regarding Europe.

[ninjatflex]

Why would you bid on Gox.

The liabilities are at what like $300M?

You are telling me that for $300M you couldn't setup and market a new exchange that would totally dominate the marketplace...

We already know that the Gox backend is basically unusable and would need to be totally re-coded for anyone to even consider using it again.  So they are taking on $300M in debt for what...the "Mt. Gox" brand and customer database...lol

The customer database is not to be sniffed at. There is no great rush of people trying to get into crypto at the moment. Look at the volume on Kraken - good exchange open for a while but...

And a lot of the Gox users are experienced and rich*. Butter them up the right way and they will just keep on trading.

Yeah I'd pay $300M for a list of people that will soon hate me.

With the amount of times gox has been hacked I'm sure there will be pastebin version of the database surfacing shortly; complete with MD5 unseed pass hashes.

* Were rich; now...not so much

Come on get real. Do you know how many huge brands shit all over their customer base day in, day out, but people still use them, return to them, and recommend them.

They'd be buying the brand; and the media attention, the existing customer base, the reputation as one of the oldest and largest Bitcoin exchanges. Hell, the media seem to be even getting confused between Gox and Bitcoin itself. In a billion dollar industry (with huge potential for growth) $300M isn't that much money to some people. Being under new management would legitimise it; if Mark leaves the picture.

I'm not saying anyone will necessarily get their money or BTC back; just that an acquisition isn't that unrealistic despite Gox's current reputation and debt.