SaveGox.com

[Phinnaeus Gage]

What was that site? And does anyone have a copy of the database that was involved?

The database has been saved by many people I suppose (but not me, sorry) and may be still available; google for "Mt.GOX leak".

The site was http://mark-karpeles.com/ but that URL now points to a form ostensibly created by Mark Karpeles for clients to confirm their claims against MtGOX.  Careful, it smells of a phishing attempt and it may be illegal since creditors should probably contact the bankruptcy court/executors rather than the unknown author of a dubious webpage.

I'm not sure I see the form you're talking about?

http://web.archive.org/web/20140413182219/http://mark-karpeles.com/

[JorgeStolfi]

http://web.archive.org/web/20140413182219/http://mark-karpeles.com/

Thanks for searching the archive.  The pages I mentioned were at that URL on 2014-03-12, but unfortunately were either taken down that same day, or were purged later from the Web Archive.

Here is a post to another thread that mentions that analysis: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.msg5665606#msg5665606

[Phinnaeus Gage]

What was that site? And does anyone have a copy of the database that was involved?

The database has been saved by many people I suppose (but not me, sorry) and may be still available; google for "Mt.GOX leak".

The site was http://mark-karpeles.com/ but that URL now points to a form ostensibly created by Mark Karpeles for clients to confirm their claims against MtGOX.  Careful, it smells of a phishing attempt and it may be illegal since creditors should probably contact the bankruptcy court/executors rather than the unknown author of a dubious webpage.

I have a copy of the database, if that's what desired.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

What was that site? And does anyone have a copy of the database that was involved?

The database has been saved by many people I suppose (but not me, sorry) and may be still available; google for "Mt.GOX leak".

The site was http://mark-karpeles.com/ but that URL now points to a form ostensibly created by Mark Karpeles for clients to confirm their claims against MtGOX.  Careful, it smells of a phishing attempt and it may be illegal since creditors should probably contact the bankruptcy court/executors rather than the unknown author of a dubious webpage.

I'm not sure I see the form you're talking about?

http://web.archive.org/web/20140413182219/http://mark-karpeles.com/

This, too, may work: http://archive.today/mark-karpeles.com

[JorgeStolfi]

This, too, may work: http://archive.today/mark-karpeles.com

Yes, thanks! Those are the pages I was referring to.

[JonHolmquist]

@ John

There's a statement i really'd like to have confirmed:

It only compensates people from US / Canada.
The majority of the MtGox customers were foreigners (including me).
These foreign customers are not included in this Class Action

is this true? I live in Switzerland and you will just keep my money cause i'm not from US/Canada?
I really apreciate the efforts you do, but there are so many informations, that make you less and less trustworthy.

Uh, the class action is only affecting the customers in that suit.

Our proposal is for all customers. Everyone will get paid back regardless of country of residence.

[JonHolmquist]

Hi Jon,
Q1) Will you be using new software or are you going to use existing software for the bitcoin trading platform?
Q2) Are you the Jon that was in the Google Hangout Talk? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vxJNgLibP4)

1: We have new software that is all ready to go. The software isn't really the hard part, it's more about operations and making sure it runs smoothly.

2: Yes

[JonHolmquist]

Mr. Gay-Bouchery and Mr. McCaleb are said to be defendants in the earlier class-action suit (whose terms I have not had time to read yet) and to agree with this plan.  If this deal is approved by the court, will they be freed of any responsibility for their roles in MtGOX's collapse?

Q: Why are you working with Jed McCaleb and Gonzague Gay-Bouchery?

This process takes pragmatism rather than idealism, and without a deal, the assets will be liquidated and customers will have no recourse. We all want an outlet for our anger and frustration, and we all want retribution, but the immediate goal at hand is to get a deal done to avoid liquidation, because once that happens the company is gone and there will be no standing left to go after Mark or investigate the lost coins.

Q: What do Jed and GGB get out of the deal?

In return for their full cooperation in recovery and prosecution of those responsible, we have agreed to release both defendants from the claims in the lawsuit.

[JonHolmquist]

Was there any information released regarding how Sunlot would convert the BTC balances into equity stakes?
For obvious reasons, I had only BTC left inside Gox. But for the same reason, those don't worth much if you count their ~100 $/BTC closing price.

We're using a $500 per coin basis.

Cheers,

[JonHolmquist]

Hey guys!

I'm on the SaveGox team. If you guys have questions for the team, please post them.
I'm opening this thread because Goat closed the other one.

Thanks,
-Jon

hi jon, thanks for your communication effort. i have a question for you and johnbetts:

why are you guys don't join forces with the OKcoin team? from what i've heard, they offered their know-how and to license their trading software to make it easy for you, to restart gox as fast as possible.

i understand, that you want to run this on your own without the need to license anything. especially since you already put in a lot effort to make that deal possible. i'm quit sure your team has the legal capacity and a lot of experience in the financial business which are some badly needed qualifications. but you seem to forget, that dealing in bitcoin is quit special! at least i get that impression, when i read statements like that:

[09:10] <johnbetts> I have been involved in electronic trading Since 2004 - bitcoin is just another asset class, not different to stocks when it comes to trading (http://pastebin.com/SbH84VDr)

since your initial rehab plan was leaked (http://www.goxdox.org/) and everybody got the impression, that you don't care to much about the creditors, there is almost no support left for sunlot. statments like this only make things worse:

[09:06] <johnbetts> we could go and build a new exchange - though if we did that - who would be challenging the courts to protect the customers intersts, and creating a mechanism for them to earn back their losses, and go after the stolen funds?

[09:26] <johnbetts> fishfish - I said the OK Coin discussion of them joining us formally did not materialize - and I said I will not say anything negative, and wrote to them to give them support for their efforts (in the sense that we want the same thing, and if they win, we are just interested in customers being taken care of)

to me and almost everyone this reads between the lines like something more or less like this: "shit, our plan got leaked and now everybody knows that we only want to make a quick buck and don't give a shit about the creditors! lets tweak the plan a little and repeat everywhere how importand the creditors are to us, maybe that way we'll get their support back"

don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that's the case! i'm just saying it kind of sounds like that! there is absolutely no harm in admitting that this is business! it's about money and helping ppl can never be the first priority. we, the creditors, understand that! sunlot has to make money and there won't be any restart if you can't get a good deal for yourself. we don't blame you for that! but to get our support the deal has to be fair! as long as it feels like a total fuck over there won't be much support.

my impression is that the sunlot team learned from their mistake and is now trying to do better, i.e. work together with the creditors for a solution everybody or at least the majority can agree to. so far there is still much greater support for the OKcoin proposal or, lets say, for what the OKcoin proposal is expected to be.

my personal impression is, that OKcoin might be somewhat optimistic regarding the legal and regulatory hurdles and what they can promise the creditors without cripling the new gox right from the beginning. you guys might be somewhat optimistic when it comes to all the possible technical glitches that can fuck up a bitcoin exchange! ("bitcoin is just another asset class, not different to stocks when it comes to trading" johnbetts)

even if i'm wrong and you have the expertise, your leaked initial plan lost you the community support. OKcoin has our support and a approved bitcoin trading engine ready to go, sunlot has the connections and resources to deal with all the non technical issues.

sounds like a dream team to me!


and last, but not least: if there is no chance to join forces for whatever reason, you might want to come up with a better plan to get more support. i personally don't need 49% equity! but i can't trust sunlot as long as you just use mt.gox [our] assets at the beginning. i'm talking about the 10m you want to take out to get started. put a reasonable amount of your own money at stake! trust can be bought. at least in this case...

Thank you for this thoughtful post!

I agree with a lot of what you said. I think though a lot of this stems from the lack of transparency in this whole ordeal.

As for OkCoin, we're more than happy to work with them. We've been in talks with them and were under the impression that they would support our deal. They decided to do their own deal instead. Either deal is still better than liquidation.

[sturle]

1: We have new software that is all ready to go. The software isn't really the hard part, it's more about operations and making sure it runs smoothly.

Does your software have the same features which made people continue using MtGox despite all the problems?  Like APIs over multiple protocols, better than all the other exchanges APIs combined, and and multi-currency trading within the same orderbook? 

[JorgeStolfi]

Mr. Gay-Bouchery and Mr. McCaleb [ ... ]  If this deal is approved by the court, will they be freed of any responsibility for their roles in MtGOX's collapse?

Q: Why are you working with Jed McCaleb and Gonzague Gay-Bouchery?

This process takes pragmatism rather than idealism, and without a deal, the assets will be liquidated and customers will have no recourse. We all want an outlet for our anger and frustration, and we all want retribution, but the immediate goal at hand is to get a deal done to avoid liquidation, because once that happens the company is gone and there will be no standing left to go after Mark or investigate the lost coins.

Q: What do Jed and GGB get out of the deal?

In return for their full cooperation in recovery and prosecution of those responsible, we have agreed to release both defendants from the claims in the lawsuit.

I see.  Are you going to make the same offer to Mr. Karpelès, then?  Or is he the expert that you intend to hire to investigate the matter?

Now seriously: it is not a matter of "anger", but deterring further crimes from happening. 

It would be interesting to know, for starters, when did Mr. Gay-Bouchery became aware of MtGOX's insolvency, and what did he do about it then.

[janos666]

I see.  Are you going to make the same offer to Mr. Karpelès, then?  Or is he the expert that you intend to hire to investigate the matter?

Ok Mark. You should take your old office to get you comfortable. Let's sit behind your desk and drink your coffee. Now, your new job is to sit there and try to remember how exactly you lost all that money. We believe the best way to remember is to continue doing the exact same thing you did during the last years. So, turn your display on and pick everything up where you left it. Just act neutrally like this whole mess with the courts and the media never happed. Once you remember, you can go on doing what every you want. Good luck and welcome at home.

[renfr]

Was there any information released regarding how Sunlot would convert the BTC balances into equity stakes?
For obvious reasons, I had only BTC left inside Gox. But for the same reason, those don't worth much if you count their ~100 $/BTC closing price.

We're using a $500 per coin basis.

Cheers,

When the plan sails on and recovery is underway the price will easily shoot up back to $1000.
Very bad idea IMO

[Gotgoxed]

Was there any information released regarding how Sunlot would convert the BTC balances into equity stakes?
For obvious reasons, I had only BTC left inside Gox. But for the same reason, those don't worth much if you count their ~100 $/BTC closing price.

We're using a $500 per coin basis.

Cheers,

When the plan sails on and recovery is underway the price will easily shoot up back to $1000.
Very bad idea IMO

I don't get the idea of the equity stakes! Please explain!

[edmundedgar]

Hi Jon. Not a creditor so maybe it's none of my business, but I'm wondering: The FAQ says,

Q: Will people be free to withdraw their assets right away?

Yes. Any recovered assets will be deposited into customer accounts immediately with no withdrawal restrictions.

As you know,
1) People responsible for stealing bitcoins and/or hacking the database, whether insiders or external people, may have positive balances in the current system.
2) There is an ongoing police investigation into who is responsible for stealing bitcoins. This may turn up information that won't be available to Sunlot, since the police have a lot of powers that Sunlot doesn't.
3) Regardless of what happens in the bankruptcy, this investigation may not be completed very quickly.

Does Sunlot really intend to pay out before the police investigation is completed, even at the risk of giving the legitimate creditors' money to the people who have already robbed them?

Or would Sunlot in fact wait until the police investigation was complete, in which case things might not happen quite as quickly as the FAQ makes it sound?

[sturle]

Does Sunlot really intend to pay out before the police investigation is completed, even at the risk of giving the legitimate creditors' money to the people who have already robbed them?

I think this is obvious.  The press relase says: "Sunlot would immediately distribute Mt. Gox assets on a proportional basis determined by an independent audit"

The audit should reveal any mismatches between balances due to deposits, withdrawals and trading, and balances which are inflated due to manipulation of the database, double withdrawals due to malleability, etc.  Finding the people would be up to the police.  I assume Sunlot will verify the identity of people who want to withdraw their assets.

[edmundedgar]

Does Sunlot really intend to pay out before the police investigation is completed, even at the risk of giving the legitimate creditors' money to the people who have already robbed them?

I think this is obvious.  The press relase says: "Sunlot would immediately distribute Mt. Gox assets on a proportional basis determined by an independent audit"

The audit should reveal any mismatches between balances due to deposits, withdrawals and trading, and balances which are inflated due to manipulation of the database, double withdrawals due to malleability, etc. 

You're being very optimistic about the powers of the audit there. That should be possible if Gox had reliable systems, kept thorough, accurate, comprehensive records, kept proper, archived backups and didn't tamper with any of the data, but do all those things sound likely to you? Bear in mind we're talking about people who didn't even keep their code in source control...

Either way I'd like to hear Jon confirm that Sunlot intend to pay out to creditors without waiting for the police to finish their investigation, which presumably he'll do if it's as obvious as you say.

[sturle]

You're being very optimistic about the powers of the audit there. That should be possible if Gox had reliable systems, kept thorough, accurate, comprehensive records, kept proper, archived backups and didn't tamper with any of the data, but do all those things sound likely to you? Bear in mind we're talking about people who didn't even keep their code in source control...

Did you see the leaks?  We know we have logs of:
o Bank deposits and withdrawals (the banks keeps them for minimum 10 years, and can be checked against MtGox's records)
o Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals, to be verified against the blockchain.
o Every trade ever executed on MtGox.

There is a wildcard here. We don't know if all txids were saved in cases where a tx may be sent twice.  If only the last one was saved, this may be a problem.  It should still be possible to find those transactions using the spent outputs in MtGox's wallet.

This is enough to verify all balances.  Finding the people who stole BTC and/or money is a case for the police, but this is separate from the audit.

I have one suggestion to Sunlot: Pay out all BTC balances of 1 BTC or less than BTC in full at once.  This will get rid of 61840 creditors at a cost of maximum 7848 BTC (3.9% of the total amount of BTC), and I assume this will simplify dealings a lot.  You could do the same with users having less than the equivalent in fiat, and get rid of most of the rest at a similar cost.  (Cost will probably be lower, because most people's balances are less than the cost of withdrawing.)  Or is having as many owners as possible in Sunlot's interest?

[edmundedgar]

You're being very optimistic about the powers of the audit there. That should be possible if Gox had reliable systems, kept thorough, accurate, comprehensive records, kept proper, archived backups and didn't tamper with any of the data, but do all those things sound likely to you? Bear in mind we're talking about people who didn't even keep their code in source control...

Did you see the leaks?  We know we have logs of:
o Bank deposits and withdrawals (the banks keeps them for minimum 10 years, and can be checked against MtGox's records)
o Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals, to be verified against the blockchain.
o Every trade ever executed on MtGox.

There is a wildcard here. We don't know if all txids were saved in cases where a tx may be sent twice.  If only the last one was saved, this may be a problem.  It should still be possible to find those transactions using the spent outputs in MtGox's wallet.

This is enough to verify all balances.  Finding the people who stole BTC and/or money is a case for the police, but this is separate from the audit.

I have one suggestion to Sunlot: Pay out all BTC balances of 1 BTC or less than BTC in full at once.  This will get rid of 61840 creditors at a cost of maximum 7848 BTC (3.9% of the total amount of BTC), and I assume this will simplify dealings a lot.  You could do the same with users having less than the equivalent in fiat, and get rid of most of the rest at a similar cost.  (Cost will probably be lower, because most people's balances are less than the cost of withdrawing.)  Or is having as many owners as possible in Sunlot's interest?

Presumably the banking data should be OK but as far as the bitcoins go there are all kinds of uncertainties. You've got some logs, that may have been tampered with by hackers, insiders or both, created by software that is known to be broken in at least one serious way, resulting in the huge hole that you mention. You may well not have the software versions that wrote the logs, so you can't even tell _how_ it was broken. Wallets may or may not have been lost or deleted - who knows?

They may turn out to have surprisingly good records that will make it easy to follow the money, but the idea that you can be _confident_ that they did isn't credible.