SaveGox.com

[JorgeStolfi]

Regarding the issue of trust, it's a simple matter. Who'd you rather have decide the fate of MtGox and your missing funds? Karpeles, crypto-clueless Japanese lawyers, or Bitcoin entrepreneurs with a record of experience in the crumbling financial world? Hmmm, tough choice.

I have yet to know a "bitcoin entrepreneur" to whom I would lend a pen without removing the cap first.  For one thing, Karpelès was one of the top board members of the Bitcoin Foundation.

Lawyers can and will hire experts to handle the technicalities, in bitcoin or any other field.

The thief (or embezzler, or fraudster) responsible for the missing MtGOX coins must be found by teh police and punished by law.   The issue is not just return the coint to his victims, but deterrence of future crimes.  If he walks away with his loot, why should not every exchange owner do the same?

[btcusury]

I have yet to know a "bitcoin entrepreneur" to whom I would lend a pen without removing the cap first.  For one thing, Karpelès was one of the top board members of the Bitcoin Foundation.

Irrelevant to the situation. You are not lending anything. Your goxcoins were never really yours. What you had was a promise to pay, just like with the banks. Karpeles got far in the Bitcoin world because he created the first exchange and the first price discovery mechanism, and made a fortune with BTC, not for reasons of trust.

Lawyers can and will hire experts to handle the technicalities, in bitcoin or any other field.

The technicalities of liquidation, not the technicalities of recovering the missing 650,000 BTC!

The thief (or embezzler, or fraudster) responsible for the missing MtGOX coins must be found by teh police and punished by law.   The issue is not just return the coint to his victims, but deterrence of future crimes.  If he walks away with his loot, why should not every exchange owner do the same?

And you really think the Tokyo police has a higher chance of solving the mystery than has the Tokyo police PLUS a restarted MtGox run by (presumably) competent people who have a bigger incentive to solve it?

[DubFX]

Good luck but you will need really big investment.

[JorgeStolfi]

Lawyers can and will hire experts to handle the technicalities, in bitcoin or any other field.

The technicalities of liquidation, not the technicalities of recovering the missing 650,000 BTC!

No, I mean technical aspects of the issue.  If it were a theft of chemical formulas they would hire chemical experts, if it was a theft of computer chip designs they would hire chip design experts, etc..

The police in countries like the US and Japan is quite compentent by now in the investigation of cybercrimes.  Bitcoin is not more complicated than the things they have already mastered.

On the other hand, the "crowd detectives" who poke at the blockchain so far have made a lot of noise, but have no concrete result to show, have they? In MtGOX or any other theft/scam...

And you really think the Tokyo police has a higher chance of solving the mystery than has the Tokyo police PLUS a restarted MtGox run by (presumably) competent people who have a bigger incentive to solve it?

The police certainly has a better chance than a team of unknown managers who MAY bring in the police (but almost certainly will not).

[Praeconium]

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

Does Your plan involve people to whom MtGox owes money and do not reside in US and Canada in the same manner as those that do?

[Nagle]

And you really think the Tokyo police has a higher chance of solving the mystery than has the Tokyo police PLUS a restarted MtGox run by (presumably) competent people who have a bigger incentive to solve it?

Yes. Once enough evidence is collected for the Tokyo police to arrest and interrogate Mark Karpeles for their usual 23 days.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Irrelevant to the situation. You are not lending anything. Your goxcoins were never really yours. What you had was a promise to pay, just like with the banks. Karpeles got far in the Bitcoin world because he created the first exchange and the first price discovery mechanism, and made a fortune with BTC, not for reasons of trust.

Hi Everyone,
I just put up a new bitcoin exchange.
Please let me know what you think.
https://mtgox.com

Name:   jed
Posts:   112
Activity:   112
Position:   Member
Date Registered:   February 28, 2011, 08:48:21 AM
Last Active:   September 30, 2013, 05:18:25 PM

I don't run mtgox any more.

Name:   MagicalTux
Posts:   617
Activity:   617
Position:   VIP
Date Registered:   November 06, 2010, 09:44:21 PM
Last Active:   September 14, 2013, 07:50:12 PM

Hi,

We're accepting BitCoin too!

https://www.kalyhost.com/?Currency=BTC

Services provided includes:

- Domain names (many extensions available)
- Web hosting (Europe or US, depending on your location)
- VPS (Europe)

Note that this is not a service specialized in "anonymous hosting", instead we are a regular provided adding support for BTC. Process is simple: choose your stuff, add to cart, register, and get on payment page. Once there you get a bitcoin address to send your payment to. You can send it in one go, or in small parts (ie. if you're paying for something with a friend).
Once the payment is confirmed, the order will be processed automatically, and you'll receive a confirmation email a bit later.

Jed McCaleb started Mt Gox, not Mark Karpeles.

[freedombit]

Regarding the issue of trust, it's a simple matter. Who'd you rather have decide the fate of MtGox and your missing funds? Karpeles, crypto-clueless Japanese lawyers, or Bitcoin entrepreneurs with a record of experience in the crumbling financial world? Hmmm, tough choice.

I have yet to know a "bitcoin entrepreneur" to whom I would lend a pen without removing the cap first.  For one thing, Karpelès was one of the top board members of the Bitcoin Foundation.

Lawyers can and will hire experts to handle the technicalities, in bitcoin or any other field.

The thief (or embezzler, or fraudster) responsible for the missing MtGOX coins must be found by teh police and punished by law.   The issue is not just return the coint to his victims, but deterrence of future crimes.  If he walks away with his loot, why should not every exchange owner do the same?

Agreed - truth must be uncovered. Whether Mark or anyone else.

[janos666]

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.

[btcusury]

Lawyers can and will hire experts to handle the technicalities, in bitcoin or any other field.

The technicalities of liquidation, not the technicalities of recovering the missing 650,000 BTC!

No, I mean technical aspects of the issue.  If it were a theft of chemical formulas they would hire chemical experts, if it was a theft of computer chip designs they would hire chip design experts, etc..

The police in countries like the US and Japan is quite compentent by now in the investigation of cybercrimes.  Bitcoin is not more complicated than the things they have already mastered.

On the other hand, the "crowd detectives" who poke at the blockchain so far have made a lot of noise, but have no concrete result to show, have they? In MtGOX or any other theft/scam...

And you really think the Tokyo police has a higher chance of solving the mystery than has the Tokyo police PLUS a restarted MtGox run by (presumably) competent people who have a bigger incentive to solve it?

The police certainly has a better chance than a team of unknown managers who MAY bring in the police (but almost certainly will not).

Blockchain analysis can only go so far, but it does reveal some parameters of the puzzle. We need access to MtGox's accounting system. With that, we'd figure it out much faster than any cybercrime police team would. We are far greater in number and experience.

You place too much faith in authority. Hiring an expert in a field who does it for the money does not compare to the power the Internet has in bringing together the top experts, and this is especially true for something like cryptocurrency.

The Tokyo police was handed evidence several weeks ago, according to one of the MtGox press releases (authored by Karpeles under supervision). So the new Gox team could investigate in parallel, or assist the police investigation if indeed one exists.

And you really think the Tokyo police has a higher chance of solving the mystery than has the Tokyo police PLUS a restarted MtGox run by (presumably) competent people who have a bigger incentive to solve it?

Yes. Once enough evidence is collected for the Tokyo police to arrest and interrogate Mark Karpeles for their usual 23 days.

You're assuming Karpeles is the only one to blame (and that he's an evil genius). He had no reason to attempt grand theft. It seems unlikely that he faked his incompetence and staged the security problems that plagued MtGox.

Jed McCaleb started Mt Gox, not Mark Karpeles.

You're right! I should've written: Karpeles got far in the Bitcoin world because he purchased the first exchange and rode that wave. He got far in the Bitcoin world because he was an early adopter and then made a fortune after buying the first exchange from McCaleb, who knew it wouldn't scale so he wanted to get rid of it.

[viajero]

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...

[sturle]

Blockchain analysis can only go so far, but it does reveal some parameters of the puzzle. We need access to MtGox's accounting system. With that, we'd figure it out much faster than any cybercrime police team would. We are far greater in number and experience.

If they deliberately disclose any of the personal details you would need from their accounting system, like bitcoin addresses conected to specific accounts, I am going to sue them to hell and back.  Please list all your own details here, if this is important to you, and people can start digging from that.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

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...

I'm beginning to wonder if this deal was hatched under the covers: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=590970.0

[JorgeStolfi]

Blockchain analysis can only go so far, but it does reveal some parameters of the puzzle. We need access to MtGox's accounting system. With that, we'd figure it out much faster than any cybercrime police team would. We are far greater in number and experience.

You place too much faith in authority. Hiring an expert in a field who does it for the money does not compare to the power the Internet has in bringing together the top experts, and this is especially true for something like cryptocurrency.

The police can get subpoena all the internal accounting records, emails, and bank records of MtGOX and any persons they have evidence to suspect.  They can get connection logs and access non-public databases of various relevant data.  These things alone gives them immensurably more chances of finding the culprit than all the internet detectives put together.

A hired expert will have access to all that data.  Plus he will have the obligation to work hard to get to the bottom of things and avoid half-baked conclusions, PLUS he will not have to fear being sued by the people he finds evidence against, PLUS he will not be easily bribed by guilty parties.  (Soon after the MtGOX database leak, a website came up that posted some tantalising results, such as the identities of the most successful traders.  The website was suddenly taken down by the author without explanation.)

I repeat my question: what useful results have the crowd detectives obtained so far, in this or in any other bitcoin scam?

[CompNsci]

The police can get subpoena all the internal accounting records, emails, and bank records of MtGOX and any persons they have evidence to suspect.  They can get connection logs and access non-public databases of various relevant data.  These things alone gives them immensurably more chances of finding the culprit than all the internet detectives put together.

A hired expert will have access to all that data.  Plus he will have the obligation to work hard to get to the bottom of things and avoid half-baked conclusions, PLUS he will not have to fear being sued by the people he finds evidence against, PLUS he will not be easily bribed by guilty parties.  (Soon after the MtGOX database leak, a website came up that posted some tantalising results, such as the identities of the most successful traders.  The website was suddenly taken down by the author without explanation.)

I repeat my question: what useful results have the crowd detectives obtained so far, in this or in any other bitcoin scam?

But the experts can be hired by the police or the court, preferably prior to any settlement. There is no reason to accept the terrible deal proposed by Sunlot Holdings to hire experts.

[CompNsci]

If they deliberately disclose any of the personal details you would need from their accounting system, like bitcoin addresses conected to specific accounts, I am going to sue them to hell and back.  Please list all your own details here, if this is important to you, and people can start digging from that.

Unclear what you consider personal details here. Simply the fact that a particular bitcoin address was used to withdraw funds from a specific Mt. Gox account?

[CompNsci]

Soon after the MtGOX database leak, a website came up that posted some tantalising results, such as the identities of the most successful traders.  The website was suddenly taken down by the author without explanation.

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

[JorgeStolfi]

But the experts can be hired by the police or the court, preferably prior to any settlement. There is no reason to accept the terrible deal proposed by Sunlot Holdings to hire experts.

Yes, definitely, that is what I meant.  If MtGOX is revived, by Sunlot or any other party, it is very unlikely that the new management will solve the crime. Even less likely than the intenet detectives.

[JorgeStolfi]

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.

[sobriket]

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?