I suspect Gox sold customer bitcoin for FIAT themselves -fractional reserve -

[Bigeyeone]

I am having big problems believing GOX lost 800.000 bitcoins in a couple of years because of the transaction malleability issue.

What if Gox , while it was growing in size, just like the banks decided: "We do not need to hold 100 percent of customer bitcoin in reserve, because at no time will all the customers withdraw all their bitcoin from Gox. "

and then instead of lending out customers bitcoins to others, for interest,  Gox decided to simply sell a percentage of the customer bitcoin they held in reserve huh ?

They could not lend out coins they had in reserve because the public would then immediately realize Mt. Gox was fractional reserve banking bitcoin, but if they just sold them on gox themselves pretending it was customers selling them, nobody could find out.

If Gox did this then they were fractional reserve banking bitcoin, diluting the amount of coins (IOU's from Gox) poeple believe they have, and have been driving down the price of bitcoin.

[1714052262]

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[tanil]

The problem will not fix. Mark is going to Hawaii

[DaFockBro]

https://i.imgur.com/0rNBwNZ.png

[tomvalois]

I am having big problems believing GOX lost 800.000 bitcoins in a couple of years because of the transaction malleability issue.

What if Gox , while it was growing in size, just like the banks decided: "We do not need to hold 100 percent of customer bitcoin in reserve, because at no time will all the customers withdraw all their bitcoin from Gox. "

and then instead of lending out customers bitcoins to others, for interest,  Gox decided to simply sell a percentage of the customer bitcoin they held in reserve huh ?

They could not lend out coins they had in reserve because the public would then immediately realize Mt. Gox was fractional reserve banking bitcoin, but if they just sold them on gox themselves pretending it was customers selling them, nobody could find out.

If Gox did this then they were fractional reserve banking bitcoin, diluting the amount of coins (IOU's from Gox) poeple believe they have, and have been driving down the price of bitcoin.

Gox is (was) so incompetent that fraud doesn't even have to have occurred for me to believe they lost all of the bitcoins.

For what it is worth, I think someone at Gox, or who had physical access to Gox's computers, took the bitcoins (which would be criminal), or that their security was so lax that their cold wallet was not cold and not secure (which would be negligent).

I don't know what happened. But I know what didn't happen. It was not malleability. Malleability would have required two very unlikely things:

#1: Gox losing more than 500 bitcoins a day, every day, from the day they opened until the day they went dark, without noticing. This seems impossible.

#2: Gox customer service honoring requests to re-send lots of large withdrawals over and over again. Even the dimmest customer service agent would get suspicious if someone called every day for three years to say his 500 bitcoins (which would have exceeded the daily withdrawal limit in the first place) had still not arrived.

[jonald_fyookball]

Obviously it wasn't malleability.  The fact that they claim it was, damages their credibility greatly.  If they lied about that, then what else are they lying about?  Connect the dots.

[V4Vendettas]

Thing is will the Japanese authority's have the right kind of people working on this to be able to establish and disprove things like malleability?

There are a lot people in this community able and willing to find out more than any specialised team they might put together. Man it sucks not having a clue what is going on behind those doors right now.

[tomvalois]

Thing is will the Japanese authority's have the right kind of people working on this to be able to establish and disprove things like malleability?

There are a lot people in this community able and willing to find out more than any specialised team they might put together. Man it sucks not having a clue what is going on behind those doors right now.

I don't know what Japan will do about the missing Bitcoins. But there is also apparently a lot of fiat currency missing. And I am guessing Japan is adequately equipped to investigate that.

You are right, though. People in this community are able to find out more than law enforcement agencies are. But the community is involved. The Bitcoin Foundation contacted the U.S. Attorney's office as soon as it learned of the magnitude of the situation.

People who are into Bitcoin know that most law enforcement and prosecutors do not have the technical sophistication to understand Bitcoin. But prosecutors do understand theft and fraud. So I applaud whoever contacted the authorities and agreed to provide technical assistance. If Gox retained its records, the truth will come out eventually, with the joint efforts of the bitcoin community and law enforcement.

[V4Vendettas]

@ tomvalois if you could share any links reference the Bitcoin foundations contact with Japanese authority's I would be very grateful. I'm going to search anyway but don't want to miss something.

The foundation is getting called out publicly of late so I can only assume they are being extremely transparent in this.

[tomvalois]

@ tomvalois if you could share any links reference the Bitcoin foundations contact with Japanese authority's I would be very grateful. I'm going to search anyway but don't want to miss something.

The foundation is getting called out publicly of late so I can only assume they are being extremely transparent in this.

I probably spoke out of turn. I have no indisputable evidence that the Bitcoin Foundation contacted the U.S. Attorney. I am guessing some things, based on news reports I have read. Here is an example from the two-bit-idiot:

"Due to some angry Gox depositors, I’ve been advised to disclose that Karpeles was overstating the fact that he had “lined up” investors. The truth is, in a move of desperation, Mark asked several investors for a bailout, all of which seemed to have immediately notified the authorities once they learned the extent of the fraud, negligence or incompetence at Mt. Gox."

I don't know for sure who Gox contacted, and I don't know for sure who contacted the authorities. But I am pretty sure the "investors" referred to were not strangers to bitcoin. I believe that the bitcoin foundation (or members of it) were among those contacted, and I believe the bitcoin foundation would have contacted authorities upon learning of the missing coins, but I don't have evidence of that and I can't say it for sure. So if you are looking for proof, I can't help much.

[cimine]

I am having big problems believing GOX lost 800.000 bitcoins in a couple of years because of the transaction malleability issue.

What if Gox , while it was growing in size, just like the banks decided: "We do not need to hold 100 percent of customer bitcoin in reserve, because at no time will all the customers withdraw all their bitcoin from Gox. "

and then instead of lending out customers bitcoins to others, for interest,  Gox decided to simply sell a percentage of the customer bitcoin they held in reserve huh ?

They could not lend out coins they had in reserve because the public would then immediately realize Mt. Gox was fractional reserve banking bitcoin, but if they just sold them on gox themselves pretending it was customers selling them, nobody could find out.

If Gox did this then they were fractional reserve banking bitcoin, diluting the amount of coins (IOU's from Gox) poeple believe they have, and have been driving down the price of bitcoin.

Sounds pretty plausible.

[Luno]

I'm checking this forum daily for GOX theories and news, and I would die to know now, what I will know in a years time regarding what really took place there.

By each day it feels more like a family member that died conspicuously and I'm in the need for closure, more that the fact that i got wiped out, as so many else.

A lot of people keep digging, supplying news, so we'll get there eventually. Keep it up!!

[royal-casino]

We will never find out what happened to those bitcoins. For all we know that fat french fuck FFF could have easily sold all that btc or he still has it stored on usb stick in his rectum

[IamCANADIAN013]

I'm checking this forum daily for GOX theories and news, and I would die to know now, what I will know in a years time regarding what really took place there.

By each day it feels more like a family member that died conspicuously and I'm in the need for closure, more that the fact that i got wiped out, as so many else.

A lot of people keep digging, supplying news, so we'll get there eventually. Keep it up!!

sorry to hear you got wiped out.  That goes to anyone who lost a lot in gox. I really hope the truth comes out on this one as I don't buy the whole "hacked" theory.  I think the Bitcoin community needs closure as a whole when it comes to gox moving forward.  It would be a lot easier to sleep at night knowing an exchange is legit and can be trusted.

[Luno]

I'm checking this forum daily for GOX theories and news, and I would die to know now, what I will know in a years time regarding what really took place there.

By each day it feels more like a family member that died conspicuously and I'm in the need for closure, more that the fact that i got wiped out, as so many else.

A lot of people keep digging, supplying news, so we'll get there eventually. Keep it up!!

sorry to hear you got wiped out.  That goes to anyone who lost a lot in gox. I really hope the truth comes out on this one as I don't buy the whole "hacked" theory.  I think the Bitcoin community needs closure as a whole when it comes to gox moving forward.  It would be a lot easier to sleep at night knowing an exchange is legit and can be trusted.

Sorry for my post sounding like self pity. I really try to avoid that. I have other non Bitcoin related investments, but thy are boring.
Aleast I don't get any begging PM with my current avatar text.

[alfabitcoin]

Does anybody knows where are backup servers located? There was a notice that they have backup outside of Japan and if server can be sealed it could provide information. Of couse, depend on forgein court and LE to take appropiate actions but mostly to protect the data from alteration.

[Luno]

Does anybody knows where are backup servers located? There was a notice that they have backup outside of Japan and if server can be sealed it could provide information. Of couse, depend on forgein court and LE to take appropiate actions but mostly to protect the data from alteration.

Hollywood FL, Thats where my deposited coins went in 2012. According to their own info they had dual raid for speed and security  and also backup there.

Can't find any links to the pic of their server or the specs, but they announced it on GOX/press.

(That could be a server siezed by FBI?)

[FrictionlessCoin]

I am having big problems believing GOX lost 800.000 bitcoins in a couple of years because of the transaction malleability issue.

What if Gox , while it was growing in size, just like the banks decided: "We do not need to hold 100 percent of customer bitcoin in reserve, because at no time will all the customers withdraw all their bitcoin from Gox. "

and then instead of lending out customers bitcoins to others, for interest,  Gox decided to simply sell a percentage of the customer bitcoin they held in reserve huh ?

They could not lend out coins they had in reserve because the public would then immediately realize Mt. Gox was fractional reserve banking bitcoin, but if they just sold them on gox themselves pretending it was customers selling them, nobody could find out.

If Gox did this then they were fractional reserve banking bitcoin, diluting the amount of coins (IOU's from Gox) poeple believe they have, and have been driving down the price of bitcoin.

Agree.  This is exactly what happened.  They shorted the market possibly April 2013 and could not recover when the market went up.

It is plausible because you can account for all deposits that went in and withdrawals.   Accoring to Mt.Gox leaked file 951K BTC are supposed to be in accounts, but net BTC balance is only 450K.  So where did the other 501K BTC disappear to?  The block chain should have a record.  But it doesnt.  that is because the 450 BTC never existed to begin with.

[janos666]

Accoring to Mt.Gox leaked file 951K BTC are supposed to be in accounts, but net BTC balance is only 450K.  So where did the other 501K BTC disappear to?

But wouldn't this mean that we can still hope to get almost half of our BTC? (Assuming a higher authority enforces and/or >=50% of the users agrees to this solution.)
I think I would be relatively "happy" with that solution in the given circumstances. Half of >0 is still infinitely more than 0.

[FrictionlessCoin]

Accoring to Mt.Gox leaked file 951K BTC are supposed to be in accounts, but net BTC balance is only 450K.  So where did the other 501K BTC disappear to?

But wouldn't this mean that we can still hope to get almost half of our BTC? (Assuming a higher authority enforces and/or >=50% of the users agrees to this solution.)
I think I would be relatively "happy" with that solution in the given circumstances. Half of >0 is still infinitely more than 0.

Never thought of that.  Yes, that is correct,  Mt.Gox has a balance of 450K BTC.  In fact, if you read the 'leaked' crisis plan,  it does say that 50% was 'recovered'.

However, Karpeles is known to cheat his customers,  so this bankruptcy business is really a way for hime to steal the remaining 450K BTC.   

[rikkejohn]

Accoring to Mt.Gox leaked file 951K BTC are supposed to be in accounts, but net BTC balance is only 450K.  So where did the other 501K BTC disappear to?

But wouldn't this mean that we can still hope to get almost half of our BTC? (Assuming a higher authority enforces and/or >=50% of the users agrees to this solution.)
I think I would be relatively "happy" with that solution in the given circumstances. Half of >0 is still infinitely more than 0.

I have a feeling that Karpeles spent a few days deleting customer records, so even if they find assets, there could be a problem proving you had X amount at the exchange.

Hopefully many people kept records and snapshots. I don't even know my customer number and had an unverified account (bizarrely, the customer number is not mentioned on any Gox correspondence). So I have a feeling that I have no chance even if there is some compensation paid. I'm almost certain the unverified people have had their balances wiped or their records deleted. Thankfully, I'm only 2.13 BTC down.

(Diversion: There was never a problem with unverified accounts until Gox stopped all withdrawals and then put a note up pretending that all along you needed to be verified to use the exchange.)