[PROPOSAL] - lock the apparent Mt. Gox coins for now

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We should urgently the lock the full blockchain for a few years, until a self appointed team decides which ones to unlock!

[CompNsci]

Do you have any suggestions on how much "taint" is sufficient to authorize a "lock"?  Will the output have to be proven to be 100% entirely from the MtGox theft?  Maybe anything more than 90% tainted should be locked?  Really since we are using 50% of the hashing power to enforce the rules, perhaps we should consider anything more than 50% tainted should be locked.  Come to think of it, given the "ethical imperative" and the "massive fraud or theft", I suppose the best thing to do is consider anything more than 0.1% tainted to be lockable.  It should be acceptable to temporarily lock valid bitcoins to protect the community from assisting the thief.

So glad to see that this idea is being taken seriously 

This raises an interesting point though. My original proposal was only to lock coins presently belonging to Mt. Gox. I don't think it would be wise to lock coins belonging to others which might have been derived from stolen Mt. Gox coins, as this does become an even harder problem from an evidence point of view. Also, those others are not presently under legal action concerning the missing coins, whereas Mt. Gox is.

Clearly the evidentiary standards would need to be seriously considered.

You raise a good point though that this really is up to the miners. Sounds like the lock would be technically feasible, actually, not that hard.

10 of those "Gox coins" are mine!   How about we lock them where they belong, back on my paper wallet.  I deposited them after the withdrawal stoppage, so I know damn well they have not left Gox's pocket!

Here's an example of a user that might benefit from this. With the Gox coins locked, at least they wouldn't be stolen or leaked to someone else until after the court proceedings.

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10 of those "Gox coins" are mine!   How about we lock them where they belong, back on my paper wallet.  I deposited them after the withdrawal stoppage, so I know damn well they have not left Gox's pocket!

God give me strength. I'm beginning to lose the will to live.

[solex]

10 of those "Gox coins" are mine!   How about we lock them where they belong, back on my paper wallet.  I deposited them after the withdrawal stoppage, so I know damn well they have not left Gox's pocket!

God give me strength. I'm beginning to lose the will to live.

Yeah. I know, I was thinking of similar events like someone giving money to Nigerian email scammers and complaining afterwards, but you sum up the situation perfectly.

[ReCat]

Why don't we stop talking about it and release a new bitcoin-qt and miner that invalidates transactions from their wallets?

[shitscared]

Why don't we stop talking about it and release a new bitcoin-qt and miner that invalidates transactions from their wallets?

+1 id run it!

[Beef Supreme]

10 of those "Gox coins" are mine!   How about we lock them where they belong, back on my paper wallet.  I deposited them after the withdrawal stoppage, so I know damn well they have not left Gox's pocket!

God give me strength. I'm beginning to lose the will to live.

Yeah. I know, I was thinking of similar events like someone giving money to Nigerian email scammers and complaining afterwards, but you sum up the situation perfectly.

So the ripoff of Gox is comparable to a Nigerian Craigslist scam?

One is the friggin' Battleship of fraud, the other is a one man dingy.

[Buffer Overflow]

10 of those "Gox coins" are mine!   How about we lock them where they belong, back on my paper wallet.  I deposited them after the withdrawal stoppage, so I know damn well they have not left Gox's pocket!

God give me strength. I'm beginning to lose the will to live.

Yeah. I know, I was thinking of similar events like someone giving money to Nigerian email scammers and complaining afterwards, but you sum up the situation perfectly.

So the ripoff of Gox is comparable to a Nigerian Craigslist scam?

One is the friggin' Battleship of fraud, the other is a one man dingy.

The end result is the same. The coins/money have disappeared, you won't be getting them back.

Why don't we stop talking about it and release a new bitcoin-qt and miner that invalidates transactions from their wallets?

Go for it, Bitcoin is free (as in speech).

But remember; others are also free to use your new fork or not. This is where your greatest challenge exists.

Best not to call the new forked coin Bitcoin, as it will cause confusion. Maybe 'untrustworthyCoin', 'bailoutCoin' or even 'CannotTrustCoinAsMaybeFrozenAtSomeFuturePointInTimeCoin'?

[solex]

Best not to call the new forked coin Bitcoin, as it will cause confusion. Maybe 'untrustworthyCoin', 'bailoutCoin' or even 'CannotTrustCoinAsMaybeFrozenAtSomeFuturePointInTimeCoin'?

The thing is that even if "apparent" gox addresses are locked, never mind the collateral damage of locked coins on non-gox addresses of innocent bitcoin holders, this would not return any funds to people who had their coins lost on gox.

It is purely an act of revenge. So the the forked Bitcoin is best called RevengeCoin.

[Loozik]

Given the possible recent leak of the Mt. Gox source code and database, what would the core developers and mining community think of locking the apparent large wallet balances belonging to Mt. Gox, Mark Karpeles, and Jeb McCaleb by changing the protocol for now?

To my knowledge there was a case of a mining pool operator who was robbed. The victim alarmed the community quickly (this is what a victim normally does when robbed) and the community could react also quickly and some portion of the stolen coins were retrieved.

Unfortunately for the goxed and fortunately for the ''thieves'', Mark Karpeles had allowed about a month before announcing that ''theft'' happened. He didn't even tell to which addresses the ''stolen'' coins were sent. MtGox is under civil rehabilitation, meaning Karpeles will probably never reveal to which addresses the ''stolen'' coins were withdrawn.

The idea would not be to accept any transactions spending these bitcoin until the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case is sorted out.

Only some portion of the ''stolen'' coins are in static addresses now. Majority was simply divided by four, divided by four, divided by four*, then sent to an exchange, sold and or bought back. Most reasonable here is to look for the so called theives' names in exchanges' records - only in case you are absolutely 100% sure (you can't be 100% sure because Karpeles - unlike the robbed ones in the past - did not tell to which addresses the ''stolen'' coins were sent).

A committee, possibly appointed by the Bitcoin Foundation, could verify proper ownership before the coins are cleared for spending and a change back is made.

If what happened was a real theft TBF might do something. Nothing so far (Karapeles' bahaviour and other stuff) indicates this was a theft.


*EDIT: now they are being divided by 8, 18, etc.: https://blockchain.info/address/12WFth5HabiVrcj5waHtDP1b7gXSQPuDPz still not sure if these are the ''disappeared'' / ''unaccounted for'' / ''stolen'' coins.

[sgbett]

Given the possible recent leak of the Mt. Gox source code and database, what would the core developers and mining community think of locking the apparent large wallet balances belonging to Mt. Gox, Mark Karpeles, and Jeb McCaleb by changing the protocol for now?

The idea would not be to accept any transactions spending these bitcoin until the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case is sorted out. A committee, possibly appointed by the Bitcoin Foundation, could verify proper ownership before the coins are cleared for spending and a change back is made.

This would be a bit different than the idea of taking the coins permanently, or permanently invalidating them. The intention here would be to simply assist the legal process.

I know this is not something which can be done for every theft, etc., but we are talking about 6% of all bitcoin mined to date, which are presently tangled up in a real legal mess.

I suppose a general principle to govern this could be that when an entity controlling greater than some number of fraction of bitcoin is subject to legal action, such as a bankruptcy, charges of fraud, lawsuits, etc., that coins may be locked pending the outcome of litigation.

A committee? pfft. All that hassle of having to get more than one person to agree, the pesky distinction between majority and consensus? pit pat piffy wing wong wang just make it one person with sole control over whether or not to allow any transaction they feel like. So long as they are trustworthy, I'm sure it will all work out for the best for everyone.