MTGox Official Statement 03-03-2014

[mgroenouwe]

https://www.mtgox.com/

February 28, 2014

To anyone concerned

Mark Karpeles
Representative Director
MtGox Co., Ltd.
Shibuya 2-11-5
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING AN APPLICATION FOR COMMENCEMENT OF A PROCEDURE OF CIVIL REHABILITATION

MtGox Co., Ltd. made today an application for commencement of a procedure of civil rehabilitation (minji saisei) at the Tokyo District Court. This application was accepted on the same day. Further, MtGox Co., Ltd is under several orders issued by the Court : a preservative order prohibiting it from paying its debts, transferring its assets or establishing security over its assets, an order establishing a comprehensive prohibition of forced attachment of its assets by its creditors and a supervisory order ordering supervision by a supervisory committee. In consequence, MtGox hereby informs you as follows.
 We first express our most sincere regrets and apologies for this situation and for causing so much inconvenience to all our users and other interested parties. We will fully respect the above orders and maintain our assets with all the necessary care.
1.Financial situation, reasons and timeline leading to this application
(1) As of now, the liabilities of MtGox Co., Ltd exceed its assets and its financial situation is as follows:


Total amount of assets 3,841,866,163
Total amount of current liabilities 6,501,119,371


(2) The increase of current liabilities may be linked to a loss of bitcoins and customer funds. These are now investigated by an expert and all efforts are made to discover the truth. This application was prompted by the following troubles:

At the start of February 2014, illegal access through the abuse of a bug in the bitcoin system resulted in an increase in incomplete bitcoin transfer transactions and we discovered that there was a possibility that bitcoins had been illicitly moved through the abuse of this bug.
 As a result of our internal investigation, we found that a large amount of bitcoins had disappeared. Although the complete extent is not yet known, we found that approximately 750,000 bitcoins deposited by users and approximately 100,000 bitcoins belonging to us had disappeared.
 We believe that there is a high probability that these bitcoins were stolen as a result of an abuse of this bug and we have asked an expert to look at the possibility of a criminal complaint and undertake proper procedures.
 On the same day (24th), we found out large discrepancies between the amount of cash held in financial institutions and the amount deposited from our users. The amounts are still under investigation and may vary but they approximate JPY 2.8 billion.
 We are investigating the causes of these problems. Since there are probably a variety of causes including hacking by third parties, we need to investigate a huge amount of transaction reports in order to establish the truth. As of this date, we cannot confirm the exact amount of missing deposit funds and the total amount of bitcoins which disappeared.
 Once we discovered that bitcoins had disappeared and the discrepancies between cash funds and deposit balances, we judged that it would be difficult to continue our activities normally and we therefore closed our site at noon on the 25th (Japan time).


(3) Regarding the filing of a complaint or damages report, an expert has been mandated and investigations have started. We will make all efforts to ensure that crimes are punished and damages recovered.
 Further we will fully cooperate with inquiries from authorities and investigations related to this matter, in Japan or overseas.

In order to increase repayments to our creditors, it is necessary to explore the possibility of having MtGox Co., Ltd. continue its business. This is why the civil rehabilitation procedure has been chosen, Rebuilding MtGox Co., Ltd under the supervision of the court in a legally organized procedure while giving proper explanations will not be for the sole benefit of the company but for that of the whole bitcoin community.
 All efforts will now be made to restore the business and recover damages to repay debts to creditors. We hope for the understanding and cooperation of all.


2.Outline of the application (1) Application date February 28, 2014
(2) Jurisdiction Tokyo District Court
(3) Counsel of applicant

Baker & McKenzie (Gaikokuho Joint Enterprise)
 Attorney-at-law Junko Suetomi
 Attorney-at-law Yamamoto Hideyuki
 Yodoyabashi & Yamagami Legal Professional Corporation
 Attorney-at-law Akio Shinomiya
 Attorney-at-law Kazumasa Kawai

(4) Supervisor Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu
 Attorney-at-law Nobuaki Kobayashi
(5) Investigator idem
(6) Case no. 2014 (sai) 12Civil rehabilitation commencement application


3.Contact information

A call center has been established to respond to all inquiries. The call center is planned to start on March 3, 2014. All inquiries to MtGox Co., Ltd. should be made to the following telephone number:
Telephone number   +81 3-4588-3921 (in Japanese)
Telephone number   +81 3-4588-3922 (in English)
Working hours   Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm (Japan time)

Please refrain from contacting the office of the supervisor/investigator.

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[invisiblefriend]

interesting --      any thoughts 


how the govt does things over thur ?

[Juneass]

So this means when MtGox starts up again people will drain it, slowly, of all the funds.
The only way people will stay is if they start to provide something new, like some kind of interest rate or something else.

[Jeronimus]

how does he arrive at only 65 millions USD (assuming the values he gave us were in JPY) liabilities? Even if he used 135 USD as a price per BTC, that would only be about 481k BTC. What about the remaining BTC to 750k?

Also, it seems like he is really trying to pull the scam i described. After having used the fake goxBTC IOUs owned by the exchange  to push the price down to 135 (along with other manipulation), they shut the exchange before it could go back up.

edit2: It's not a necessity he used only the goxBTC owned by the exchange. He could have use extra goxBTC he created simply by entering numbers in the server database. Since he refuses to give out any records, anything is possible.
What remains is that noone sane would have sold at 91.5 USD when other exchanges were at around 600, 6x+ higher.

Perfect way to lower the liabilities down by a factor of 5-6x, actually more, since their doings dropped the BTC price on other exchanges on top.


This guy is a complete asshole fraudster


edit: He has not shown us the cold wallet addresses still and pretends to be investigating, adding insult to injury. What's next? Telling us the cat ate the paper with all cold wallet addresses listed on it?

[hgamezoom]

So he is still not sure whether these coins are stolen by the hacker or someone inside the company?

Who is the "expert" investing on this? Is he capable of figuring all these things out?
How long will they establish the "truth"?

[Jeronimus]

So he is still not sure whether these coins are stolen by the hacker or someone inside the company?

Who is the "expert" investing on this? Is he capable of figuring all these things out?
How long will they establish the "truth"?

He is a lying turd, and since his lies are so obvious, either the authorities will start asking him some serious questions, or they have been told to refrain from doing so which plays into the US gov being behind this theory.

[seriouscoin]

interesting --      any thoughts 


how the govt does things over thur ?

Thoughts? if you cant even see lies throwing at your face, you shouldnt have business in any investment

Right here:

At the start of February 2014, illegal access through the abuse of a bug in the bitcoin system resulted in an increase in incomplete bitcoin transfer transactions and we discovered that there was a possibility that bitcoins had been illicitly moved through the abuse of this bug.
 As a result of our internal investigation, we found that a large amount of bitcoins had disappeared. Although the complete extent is not yet known, we found that approximately 750,000 bitcoins deposited by users and approximately 100,000 bitcoins belonging to us had disappeared.
 We believe that there is a high probability that these bitcoins were stolen as a result of an abuse of this bug and we have asked an expert to look at the possibility of a criminal complaint and undertake proper procedures.
 On the same day (24th), we found out large discrepancies between the amount of cash held in financial institutions and the amount deposited from our users. The amounts are still under investigation and may vary but they approximate JPY 2.8 billion.

Thats not only impossible but also insulting. Mark treats you as a 5 yrs old. And you're asking us what our thoughts are?

[LarryLiu]

"We first express our most sincere regrets and apologies for this situation and for causing so much inconvenience to all our users..."

"we have asked an expert to look at the possibility of a criminal complaint and undertake proper procedures."

So no independent technical investigation of what happened.

[thelema93]

You will all be very surprised when Gox.com re-launches in a few weeks time!

[seriouscoin]

You will all be very surprised when Gox.com re-launches in a few weeks time!

I like how you get raped and still come back to ask for more.

Dumbass

[grifferz]

He is a lying turd, and since his lies are so obvious, either the authorities will start asking him some serious questions, or they have been told to refrain from doing so which plays into the US gov being behind this theory.

Do you not consider a third possibility: Japanese government prefers to just continue with the view that bitcoin has no value, and by ignoring bitcoin like this provides a massive SCREW YOU to all who lost bitcoins in MtGox, which suits their agenda?

[T.Stuart]

On the same day (24th), we found out large discrepancies between the amount of cash held in financial institutions and the amount deposited from our users. The amounts are still under investigation and may vary but they approximate JPY 2.8 billion.
 We are investigating the causes of these problems. Since there are probably a variety of causes including hacking by third parties, we need to investigate a huge amount of transaction reports in order to establish the truth. As of this date, we cannot confirm the exact amount of missing deposit funds and the total amount of bitcoins which disappeared

The text I highlighted in bold above is what really strikes me as really interesting about this piece of text.

It is plain obvious that $30 million USD did not magically disappear due to "malleability". Fiat does not work that way. The withdraw delays since May/June 2013 also makes it very obvious that this money has been missing for a long time and it's clear that MtGox knew about it.

No serious investigator will buy this "oh we had no idea until February 24th, 2014" story.

So why would they put that there when it's such an obvious lie?

Either they really want to go to jail or they know there will be no real investigation because of something else that is going on here. I'm not saying it's a big scam ordered by or at minimum approved by a government. I'm just saying that we should pay close attention if weeks go by and no real investigation happens. It's usually pretty telling when huge amounts of money go missing and there is no official investigation or even attempt at explaining how this money went missing.

It's looking more and more like Mark K is in absolute denial. He will probably go to jail without coming clean on anything. Which drags on the bullshit for everyone else. No closure. 

[Cluster2k]

You will all be very surprised when Gox.com re-launches in a few weeks time!

Me thinks someone is trying to talk up their Bitcoin Builder investment.

[T.Stuart]

"Please refrain from contacting the office of the supervisor/investigator."

Translation:

"Please do not tell the supervisor/investigator what's going on".

[BitcoinQTlol]

Does this lip stick suit me?

I wanna make sure i'm looking pretty when Gox fuck me again.

[Hannan]

so what's the outcome? are they gonna re-lunch gox?

[T.Stuart]

Does this lip stick suit me?

I wanna make sure i'm looking pretty when Gox fuck me again.

Don't worry. "Anything that moves..." 

[JCviggen]

No serious investigator will buy this "oh we had no idea until February 24th, 2014" story

They don't have to buy anything, bank records are pretty unambiguous really...not like BTC addresses. The records will be made available no problem.

[sgbett]

If the cash balances on gox don't match the deposits in their bank accounts, maybe the root of the problem was an exploit that allowed for the creation of goxbux.

Would explain the price run up too... *shrugs*

[T.Stuart]

If the cash balances on gox don't match the deposits in their bank accounts, maybe the root of the problem was an exploit that allowed for the creation of goxbux.

Would explain the price run up too... *shrugs*

Were you watching when the price on Gox first broke through $1000?

Someone purposely executed a market order for millions of dollars just to get the green candle to burst through the price. A rich idiot trying to show off, I thought, but perhaps..

But of course there was a certain Asian country at least partly responsible