The Willy Report...What do you guys make of it?

[turvarya]

Thread and a bit of discussion here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=624877.0 but I'm sure this forum will be flooded with topics on this now  . My bet is Mark is just a dodgy fuck.

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[Nathonas]

Just finished reading, still sitting here with an amazed expression on my face. BTC price was manipulated for months! Right under everyone's noses. BTC not so "volatile" after all, the price we have seen for the past little while is the real thing.

As for whether this means it was an insider-job...there isn't really a smoking gun in the article, but all the evidence the author mentions makes it highly unlikely that it was a hacker. Why? Well besides everything he points out... Gox would've noticed something fishy long before. And all of the things these bots did and the privileges they had seem much more likely for Gox owners (like buying BTC at their own price, lol) to be able to do.

At this point, I just want someone to find a direct link to Karpeles / whoever else was in charge of Gox and had this kind of power to manipulate accounts, bots, prices, etc. Awaiting sweet sweet justice to set precedent for Bitcoin!

edit: I'm surprised this thread has so little posts/ views. This is huge news...

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Thread and a bit of discussion here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=624877.0 but I'm sure this forum will be flooded with topics on this now  . My bet is Mark is just a dodgy fuck.

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Luckily, it's here: https://bitcointa.lk/threads/proof-of-massive-fraudulent-trading-activity-and-how-it-has-affected-the-price.319429/page-2

Scrapping one of my most important from it:

Reading the article now, of which I see (via a search) that the author forgot to mention User # 44557 (44557,ttux,marc@ttux.net,$1$zRJRdGL.$VFrVkrM.g/DPp9A6eQH5D.) of that first Mt Gox dump, of which I just easily connected BTCINVEST.ORG to.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Just finished reading, still sitting here with an amazed expression on my face. BTC price was manipulated for months! Right under everyone's noses. BTC not so "volatile" after all, the price we have seen for the past little while is the real thing.

As for whether this means it was an insider-job...there isn't really a smoking gun in the article, but all the evidence the author mentions makes it highly unlikely that it was a hacker. Why? Well besides everything he points out... Gox would've noticed something fishy long before. And all of the things these bots did and the privileges they had seem much more likely for Gox owners (like buying BTC at their own price, lol) to be able to do.

At this point, I just want someone to find a direct link to Karpeles / whoever else was in charge of Gox and had this kind of power to manipulate accounts, bots, prices, etc. Awaiting sweet sweet justice to set precedent for Bitcoin!

edit: I'm surprised this thread has so little posts/ views. This is huge news...

Sure is huge, thus surprised to see so many posts.  Imaging if the word cat what in its title, hell, we'd be at 42 pages already.

But, luckily, we have Brock Pierce, an accused pedophile, and Bobby Lee, CEO of BTC China, an exchange, on the board at The Bitcoin Foundation to straighten this shit out.

[JorgeStolfi]

Lots of mom and pop businesses, hipster cafes and tech specialists, but in reality bitcoin transaction numbers are only up 2x compared to 2 years ago

And both transaction count and total BTC transaction volume have been roughly constant for the past few months.  The latter is surprising since the price has fallen.

The bulk of transactions (in either metric) is probably unrelated to commerce anyway. May be online gambling, fund management, mining, and/or people moving BTC between addresses that they own (such as hot/cold wallets, or attempts to make dirty money hard to trace), etc.

[JorgeStolfi]

Was the thread "Proof of massive fraudulent trading activity and how it has affected the price" really removed from this forum?  If true, that could only mean that it was on the right track...   

[helmax]

Just finished reading, still sitting here with an amazed expression on my face. BTC price was manipulated for months! Right under everyone's noses. BTC not so "volatile" after all, the price we have seen for the past little while is the real thing.

As for whether this means it was an insider-job...there isn't really a smoking gun in the article, but all the evidence the author mentions makes it highly unlikely that it was a hacker. Why? Well besides everything he points out... Gox would've noticed something fishy long before. And all of the things these bots did and the privileges they had seem much more likely for Gox owners (like buying BTC at their own price, lol) to be able to do.

At this point, I just want someone to find a direct link to Karpeles / whoever else was in charge of Gox and had this kind of power to manipulate accounts, bots, prices, etc. Awaiting sweet sweet justice to set precedent for Bitcoin!

edit: I'm surprised this thread has so little posts/ views. This is huge news...

this is fucking epic!

[medUSA]

edit: I'm surprised this thread has so little posts/ views. This is huge news...

The title did not help. When I first saw this, I thought it was a film. It took me the better half of an hour to read the whole report. The average signature spammers aren't going to waste their time reading it.

I faintly remember reading threads about this bot. Didn't think much for it at the time, a bot buying btc at set intervals when prices falls within a preset range is normal for a bot, right? Now we know there are nothing but normal. Their userid in the #800000 range proves that those accounts must be created manually inside gox and not by a user registering on the website.

This visualization (http://bitcoin.stamen.com) allows you to spot Willy miles away, because Willy can bend the rules like Neo in Matrix and buy bitcoins at random prices. If the database is real, there is no doubt in my mind someone in the exchange is stealing coins.

[crazy_rabbit]

I've just nearly finished reading it, and it's unfortunate to hear that Karples and Gox might have been rotten to the very core. I had for a long time held out hope they were just fighting the good fight against hackers, etc... but of course these days that was obviously naive fantasy. I was hoping they were massively incompetent, not outright criminals.

[Cryptopher]

I've just nearly finished reading it, and it's unfortunate to hear that Karples and Gox might have been rotten to the very core. I had for a long time held out hope they were just fighting the good fight against hackers, etc... but of course these days that was obviously naive fantasy. I was hoping they were massively incompetent, not outright criminals.

And then you see the statements that they were issuing, passing on blame, tarnishing the reputation of others in an attempt to cover things up.

I wonder how much that the day-to-day staff at Mt Gox knew about what was going on, I suppose that they were just doing their jobs and are unfortunate to have been caught up in all of this.

I recall reading something from a member of staff at Gox saying that Mark was using consumer funds to bankroll an on-site coffee shop.

This report further damns those running Gox; not only are they alleged to have misused user's funds, but they played an active role in the manipulation of prices. Absolutely disgraceful.

[hilariousandco]

I've just nearly finished reading it, and it's unfortunate to hear that Karples and Gox might have been rotten to the very core. I had for a long time held out hope they were just fighting the good fight against hackers, etc... but of course these days that was obviously naive fantasy. I was hoping they were massively incompetent, not outright criminals.

I recall reading something from a member of staff at Gox saying that Mark was using consumer funds to bankroll an on-site coffee shop.

I'm sure that was probably just a joke based on the frappuchino meme that sprung up.

[sana8410]

The problem is: we somehow know where the coins have gone, and it doesn't look like they are being withdrawn the way described in the OP at all.
And it still doesn't explain how can Gox draining their cold wallets empty without even paying attention, if they ever use one.

[Djao]

The problem is: we somehow know where the coins have gone, and it doesn't look like they are being withdrawn the way described in the OP at all.
And it still doesn't explain how can Gox draining their cold wallets empty without even paying attention, if they ever use one.

It was all fake, fake BTC and fake USD, and the real coins are in the hands of thiefs and scammers, welcome to bitcoin!

[daveon]

The Willy Report is terrific news! You try to manipulate the price of BTC -> you get punished and go out of business! BTC for win! BTC for life!!!

[HeliosAct]

I think this is interesting in the fact that Mark had mentioned the ability to purchase a private API which would trade even if the public API was offline, so it implicates Mt. Gox KNOWING what was going on no matter what. Even then the suspicious no sell/no withdraw issues would certainly be noticed. Not to mention the buy price remaining the same for these "users".

Some sort of criminal prosecution might be desired, however I think it might be difficult to tie Mt. Gox directly to these bots. They might have known about them, but may not have been using them.

All of this seems like good data analysis and I applaud ANY research into this matter.

[igorr]

Mining company and exchange working together, massive fraud !

[helmax]

knc bfl avalon bitfury mgox bitstamp fundation is same hole

we are fuck
bitcoin is opensource but persons are corrupt

[Rigon]

Wow. I am shocked. Pretty much all I thought I knew about the history of Bitcoin seems to be fake, all the bubbles, the crazy rides... all just driven by a crazy fat dude who loves overpriced coffee drinks. Thank you for the thorough report, I learned a lot.

[igorr]

http://www.coindesk.com/bot-named-willy-did-mt-goxs-automated-trading-pump-bitcoin-price/
http://willyreport.wordpress.com/

After willy, 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob9Ak1t09Ao

And topics:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=476535.0;topicseen
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=179586.0;topicseen

[hdbuck]

LMAO, like if the latest uptrend/break isn't manipulation too..