[ANN] Mt.Gox Withdrawal Clarification

[Mt.Gox Support]

Dear Bitcoin Community,

In the past several days many of you have expressed some sincere and honest worries when it comes to withdrawing funds from Mt.Gox.  Some concerns have even arisen that we are on the verge of collapse and might ultimately bring Bitcoin down with us.

A lot has happened in the past few months and many formerly reliable and trustworthy exchanges and trading platforms have abruptly ceased business leaving many of you in the dark and/or with yet to be returned funds. We can understand the concerns that our customers might have given the current environment in Bitcoin.

Please remember that Mt.Gox is one of the oldest Bitcoins exchanges, we have suffered setbacks many times in our history and we have always been a highly visible target for criminal elements and governments due to our large share of the market. However, regardless of our past problems and recent issues with money delays, we are still alive, and still pushing things forward to make sure that one day Bitcon will no longer be seen as a fringe element but as a real alternative to fiat currencies.

We would like to clarify the issues which are currently causing the most concern to our users.

1. What’s going on?
Some US Dollar withdrawals are taking too long to be processed.

2. Who’s affected by this problem?

People using Dwolla for their withdrawals, along with 5% of US Dollar wire transfers which is an unfortunate flow-on effect.

3. How long does it takes to get my funds on Dwolla once I initiate a withdrawal?

At this time we are seeing around a 7 day delay in Dwolla withdrawals under $1,000 USD. These withdrawals are set with the highest priority in the withdrawal Queue.
However, any withdrawal more than two weeks old will from this point forward will be moved to the top of the queue and processed as a priority before other withdraws.

4. Why?
As you may know by now, Dwolla made a drastic change in their TOS for the good of their company and in order to protect both their interest and their clients. 
Their new TOS is, like many other Dwolla clients, affecting us, and as for today, we are still waiting for Dwolla to give us the appropriate clearance to continue working with them.

Since we do not have a clear answer from Dwolla, we pro-actively decided to put a new AML policy in place for people willing to use their service, as well as carefully monitor funds left on their services in order to limit any potential loss in case Dwolla suddenly decides to no longer do business with us. This decision was made primarily to safeguard our customers' funds.

5. Are other withdrawal methods affected? 

International wires in non-USD currencies and SEPA withdrawals are not affected, they are operating normally. Please note that roughly 5% of our USD wire transfers are affected, but by and large are being processed normally.

6. Any numbers?

Last month in May we processed 2,459 USD Dwolla withdrawals for a total of 2.17 million USD.
The number of delayed withdrawals are 8.54% of the total USD withdrawals and represent 13.25% of the 2.17 million USD through Dwolla.

7. Is Mt.Gox insolvent?

We want to reassure everyone that we are not insolvent and the number of withdrawals touched by this “slowdown” is a minority of our total withdrawals. We invite users who are concerned to review our transparency document here: https://mtgox.com/press_release_20120201.html An updated one will be made available as soon as we are able which should allay any fears that we could possibly be insolvent.

Disclaimer: Even if the above numbers for affected withdrawals are in the minority compared to what we handle every single month, this is does not mean that we are ignoring our users affected by this problem or ignoring the problem all together. We are working as we speak on several solutions but unfortunately we are not in a position to discuss the details of these solutions as yet.

Conclusion
We are fully aware of the delays for some withdrawals and we are working on fixing this issue as we speak as well as working with other Bitcoin partners to find other alternatives.

Mt.Gox is still solvent and is not going into bankruptcy anytime soon.

Can you trust us? As we stated earlier... Mt.Gox is one of the oldest Bitcoin Exchanges and despite all that happened since its creation, Mt.Gox is still the leading Bitcoin Exchange, and still going while many of our respected and hard working colleague exchanges and trading platform collapsed.

[1715104312]

1715104312

[1715104312]

1715104312

[1715104312]

1715104312

[proudhon]

Mt.Gox, you're doing it...right!  Thanks for the update.

[rjk]

Could you do the same thing as was done at the time of the big hack last year and transfer a specified number of bitcoins to a specified address, after having announced the address and the amount? Ideally, we would see the amount moved cover the total asks, at minimum.

[bitcoinBull]

Whoever wrote this PR announcement could've done a lot better. Remove the first and the last paragraph. They contain too many alarming phrases (don't repeat rumors, not even to deny them). Readers will hear those alarming phrases much louder than the reassuring clauses.

[twobitcoins]

Why are wire transfers affected?

[Serge]

Why are wire transfers affected?

would be good to know to/from which banks specifically

[bulanula]

subbbing

Thanks for the update !

[Bitcoin Oz]

I think its a case that the fiat money system sucks rather than mt gox being insolvent. And yes moving a large amount of coins would be a good idea.

[notme]

Could you do the same thing as was done at the time of the big hack last year and transfer a specified number of bitcoins to a specified address, after having announced the address and the amount? Ideally, we would see the amount moved cover the total asks, at minimum.

And yes moving a large amount of coins would be a good idea.

This.

[TehZomB]

Why are wire transfers affected?

Because:

along with 5% of US Dollar wire transfers which is an unfortunate flow-on effect.

would be good to know to/from which banks specifically

Agreed.

[notme]

Why are wire transfers affected?

Because:

along with 5% of US Dollar wire transfers which is an unfortunate flow-on effect.

would be good to know to/from which banks specifically

Agreed.

That doesn't help... wtf is a "flow-on effect"?

[MtGox_Dylan]

Why are wire transfers affected?

Because:

along with 5% of US Dollar wire transfers which is an unfortunate flow-on effect.

would be good to know to/from which banks specifically

Agreed.

That doesn't help... wtf is a "flow-on effect"?

Because Dwolla withdrawals are delayed, a number of our users have cancelled their Dwolla withdrawals and are performing wire transfers. This has increased the number of wire transfers being sent out, slowing down some wire transfers in America slightly. No particular banks are affected, it simply depends on the number of withdrawals in the queue and a number of other factors like withdrawal limits for a given Mt.Gox owned account, and so on.

[notme]

Why are wire transfers affected?

Because:

along with 5% of US Dollar wire transfers which is an unfortunate flow-on effect.

would be good to know to/from which banks specifically

Agreed.

That doesn't help... wtf is a "flow-on effect"?

Because Dwolla withdrawals are delayed, a number of our users have cancelled their Dwolla withdrawals and are performing wire transfers. This has increased the number of wire transfers being sent out, slowing down some wire transfers in America slightly. No particular banks are affected, it simply depends on the number of withdrawals in the queue and a number of other factors like withdrawal limits for a given Mt.Gox owned account, and so on.

Thank you for the clarification.

[casascius]

Dylan, in payroll, when we want to move money to lots of people at a time, we send a text file, or an excel spreadsheet, or even just take a printout to a processor or bank.  There is no amount of activity (especially when the bank is charging a hefty fee for each wire) that would ever make a bank say, "Whoa there, that's too much, it's going to take us days/weeks to do all of this".  They would jump on that shit like throwing fresh steak into a pack of hungry stray dogs.

[repentance]

Dylan, in payroll, when we want to move money to lots of people at a time, we send a text file, or an excel spreadsheet, or even just take a printout to a processor or bank.  There is no amount of activity (especially when the bank is charging a hefty fee for each wire) that would ever make a bank say, "Whoa there, that's too much, it's going to take us days/weeks to do all of this".  They would jump on that shit like throwing fresh steak into a pack of hungry stray dogs.

Payroll's a very specific purpose, though, and you have a specific relationship with the recipients and probably have more than enough identifying information on your employees to satisfy KYC requirements.  It's not the same for AML purposes as sending large amounts of money by wire to people in various locations throughout the world whom you're not paying for goods or services and about whom you have limited information.  Banks can and do impose transaction limits on accounts, especially when your business and/or your customers are seen as "high risk".

If you look at the cases where banks and money transmitters have received large fines for non-compliance with AML/KYC requirements, they've always involved large volumes of wire transfers to and from overseas jurisdictions and inadequate verification of identity, origin of funds and destination of funds.

[MtGox_Dylan]

Dylan, in payroll, when we want to move money to lots of people at a time, we send a text file, or an excel spreadsheet, or even just take a printout to a processor or bank.  There is no amount of activity (especially when the bank is charging a hefty fee for each wire) that would ever make a bank say, "Whoa there, that's too much, it's going to take us days/weeks to do all of this".  They would jump on that shit like throwing fresh steak into a pack of hungry stray dogs.

Payroll's a very specific purpose, though, and you have a specific relationship with the recipients and probably have more than enough identifying information on your employees to satisfy KYC requirements.  It's not the same for AML purposes as sending large amounts of money by wire to people in various locations throughout the world whom you're not paying for goods or services and about whom you have limited information.  Banks can and do impose transaction limits on accounts, especially when your business and/or your customers are seen as "high risk".

If you look at the cases where banks and money transmitters have received large fines for non-compliance with AML/KYC requirements, they've always involved large volumes of wire transfers to and from overseas jurisdictions and inadequate verification of identity, origin of funds and destination of funds.

This is pretty much it. There are also some withdrawals which for various reasons need to be handled manually by us before being sent out, and there are only so many transactions that can be carried out by our staff in a given day.

[casascius]

Payroll's a very specific purpose, though, and you have a specific relationship with the recipients and probably have more than enough identifying information on your employees to satisfy KYC requirements.  It's not the same for AML purposes as sending large amounts of money by wire to people in various locations throughout the world whom you're not paying for goods or services and about whom you have limited information.  Banks can and do impose transaction limits on accounts, especially when your business and/or your customers are seen as "high risk".

If you look at the cases where banks and money transmitters have received large fines for non-compliance with AML/KYC requirements, they've always involved large volumes of wire transfers to and from overseas jurisdictions and inadequate verification of identity, origin of funds and destination of funds.

This is pretty much it. There are also some withdrawals which for various reasons need to be handled manually by us before being sent out, and there are only so many transactions that can be carried out by our staff in a given day.

Can you explain?  I am trying to imagine it.

I'm trying to put myself in the seat of someone who doesn't have the luxury of sending an Excel spreadsheet to the bank and saying "please wire all this money", but nevertheles has all the information of the money he'd like to wire on my screen in front of him.

What does the bank want to be satisfied that I know who my customer is?  Why couldn't I take that same spreadsheet, print it out, and then print copies of all the passports, driver's licenses, and all the other stuff they would want as proof I know who I'm sending my wire to.  Then on each sheet of ID documentation, I would hand-write which wire it belongs to, for easy cross referencing.  I would take it to the bank and say - here ya go - please let me know if any of this isn't enough.

I would imagine this would be limited mainly by how quickly I could sit and print people's documentation, but I can't imagine it would take me weeks where, for example, someone trying to pull $10k would have to wait a month.

And meanwhile, I would be able to safely report to my customer, "Yep, we submitted the wire request to the bank on <date> and that's where it's at!"... if the bank takes 8 months to deliver the wire, that's the customer's problem with the bank, no longer MtGox's problem, as MtGox will have performed as instructed.

Now, if the banks dislike Gox's wire activity or something, that would be understandable... but this was not stated in the OP, which discusses problems with Dwolla.

[finway]

I bet it's hard to keep millions of dollars for other people and not touching it ?
That's  BANKS, that's FRB BANKS.

[Polvos]

Ok, I celebrate your suddenly sincerity stroke.

Now a question from a non US user:

- Can you please make the same sincerity effort with tainted coins policy? Look. I (and I'm sure a lot of people too) am in no way taking the risk of using your exchange because I suspect you use a dark tainted coin list and a tracking blockchain software to follow them. Is it any way that we, the customers, can gain acces to this software-database before the bitcoin transfer or will the use of your service continue being an act of faith?

[Mt.Gox Support]

Payroll's a very specific purpose, though, and you have a specific relationship with the recipients and probably have more than enough identifying information on your employees to satisfy KYC requirements.  It's not the same for AML purposes as sending large amounts of money by wire to people in various locations throughout the world whom you're not paying for goods or services and about whom you have limited information.  Banks can and do impose transaction limits on accounts, especially when your business and/or your customers are seen as "high risk".

If you look at the cases where banks and money transmitters have received large fines for non-compliance with AML/KYC requirements, they've always involved large volumes of wire transfers to and from overseas jurisdictions and inadequate verification of identity, origin of funds and destination of funds.

This is pretty much it. There are also some withdrawals which for various reasons need to be handled manually by us before being sent out, and there are only so many transactions that can be carried out by our staff in a given day.

Can you explain?  I am trying to imagine it.

I'm trying to put myself in the seat of someone who doesn't have the luxury of sending an Excel spreadsheet to the bank and saying "please wire all this money", but nevertheles has all the information of the money he'd like to wire on my screen in front of him.

What does the bank want to be satisfied that I know who my customer is?  Why couldn't I take that same spreadsheet, print it out, and then print copies of all the passports, driver's licenses, and all the other stuff they would want as proof I know who I'm sending my wire to.  Then on each sheet of ID documentation, I would hand-write which wire it belongs to, for easy cross referencing.  I would take it to the bank and say - here ya go - please let me know if any of this isn't enough.

I would imagine this would be limited mainly by how quickly I could sit and print people's documentation, but I can't imagine it would take me weeks where, for example, someone trying to pull $10k would have to wait a month.

And meanwhile, I would be able to safely report to my customer, "Yep, we submitted the wire request to the bank on <date> and that's where it's at!"... if the bank takes 8 months to deliver the wire, that's the customer's problem with the bank, no longer MtGox's problem, as MtGox will have performed as instructed.

Now, if the banks dislike Gox's wire activity or something, that would be understandable... but this was not stated in the OP, which discusses problems with Dwolla.

We are talking about international wire here, remember we are in Japan, so whatever you are used to in the US, does not necessarily apply for us, also Banks in Japan are everything but flexible especially when it comes to receiving and sending money from overseas, they are really picky, way more than ones in Europe or the US.