Looks like Mt. Gox is dead...

[halik]

damn say goodbye to any chance of getting them back..

mtgox files for bankruptcy

Good thing they had segregated customer accounts, minimum capital requirements, daily break and cashflow reconciliation, and insurance through SIPC, like every other brokerage.

Oh, wait they didn't?

 

[Rakehellion]

 

[AViking]

I was open minded. I asked a lot of practical questions with respect to how Bitcoin or its variants can be used to conduct real business. The answer? It can't.

If you choose to speculate on it then you have to accept the consequences. This is clearly a pyramid scheme.

 

[SSSnail]

In the beginning, there was nothing.

Then, some pimply dude in basement said "let there be money", and because he didn't have any, he created some files.

And then, he said unto himself "this is how I can scam people" and then set forth to preach the files to the unwashed masses.

Other pimply dudes with no money then think "dayamn, I can has money by doing nothing, just create some files" and then they created files.

Then the files are sold and bought, and sold and bought, and more pimply dudes are then caught up in the turning-nothing-into-money business.

And then, mt. gox rested on the 7th day.


Did I get that right?

 

[IronWing]

Did I get that right?

You left out the part about the file creation process wasting lots of electricity. It wasn't good enough to simply create files, they had to come up with a stupidly wasteful way to do it.

 

[PottedMeat]

damn say goodbye to any chance of getting them back..

mtgox files for bankruptcy



edit: to say not that anyone had any chance in hell of getting them back anyway...

so how long before he's dead?

 

[_Rick_]

You left out the part about the file creation process wasting lots of electricity. It wasn't good enough to simply create files, they had to come up with a stupidly wasteful way to do it.

Well, that was the hooker to get the geeks sucked in!

 

[Ns1]

holy fuck. assorted facts.

By its own account, Mt.Gox collected only $380,450 in revenue during most of 2012. It lost 13 times that the next year, when U.S. government agents seized $5 million from its account for allegedly lying on bank documents.

The company said it lost 750,000 bitcoins belonging to customers, and an additional 100,000 of its own bitcoins. Those bitcoins today would be worth more than $450 million.

Mt. Gox also said it has debts of about $63.6 million

http://www.latimes.com/business/tec...tcoins-20140228,0,2153477.story#ixzz2udP6XBd8

360k revenue in 2012, 63m debt

 

[ViRGE]

Hahaha! Oh wow, that's a good one!

 

[Printer Bandit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24Vlt-lpVOY

 

[waggy]

holy fuck. assorted facts.





http://www.latimes.com/business/tec...tcoins-20140228,0,2153477.story#ixzz2udP6XBd8

360k revenue in 2012, 63m debt

yeah. when you read stuff like that its not a suprise they "lost" all those bitcoins and are now in bankruptcy.

 

[Eug]

Heh.

P.S. I think they may have to take this fiasco into account in the writing for the TV show Almost Human. In that show Bitcoin is a "real" currency, not the complete joke it currently is.

 

[Printer Bandit]

http://www.moneynews.com/Personal-Finance/Winklevoss-bitcoin-MtGox-regulation/2014/02/26/id/554927

 

[Nintendesert]

hahahaha keep faith alive!

 

[dr150]

I'm sure there must be some out there (i.e. tax avoiding Russian gangsters) that took what remained of their collapsed Cyprus accounts and put it into Mt. Gox Bitcoins.

Talk about a double whammy!

 

[AViking]

These numbers are staggering. How stupid do people have to be to still think these are a good idea!?

He claims that 850,000 bitcoins just vanished.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Here's a hint to the believers: If it's technology, it can and will be tampered with. It's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when".

 

[SparkyJJO]

These numbers are staggering. How stupid do people have to be to still think these are a good idea!?

He claims that 850,000 bitcoins just vanished.

But according to the documentation on it, bitcoins are 100% traceable and can never be stolen or vanish!!

Or.. something like that.

:hmm:

 

[Eug]

I too think many of those stories are likely fake. However, undoubtedly many people have lost big money with their bitcoin stupidity.

One deniable truth is that people can be insanely stupid. Even with "legitimate" ventures, it's really, really easy to lose that money. People shouldn't be investing in such high risk ventures unless they really can afford to lose it. Sure, if that high risk venture is successful, they might make returns of 1000% or something. However, I just don't understand why so many people only take this factor into account, and totally ignore the more than likely chance they'll lose their entire investment, or a big chunk of it at least.

 

[WelshBloke]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my queations.

Correct


No, once you transfer a Bitcoin from your control and the Bitcoin network confirms it, you can no longer transfer those coins, even if you have 1000 copies of it.

How quickly does the Bitcoin network register the change of ownership?

If I have 5 copies of my Bitcoin and click on 5 different purchases simultaneously how would it deal with that?

Yes, but there is no personally identifiable information, it is all just cryptographic addresses and balances. The database, really called the blockchain, is just a public transaction ledger. It contains every single transaction and every single record of a Bitcoin that is contained within the network.

How can it do that with no personally identifiable information? Do you just mean the the identifiable information is encrypted or that it doesnt exist?
If its not registering who owns it I'm not understanding how its going to work out which is the "real" bitcoin and which is the "copy". Is it just the one thats used first? It would have to be a pretty fast network to combat any fraud that way wouldnt it?

I'm not trying to be difficult with these questions, I'm just having difficulty getting my head around how the "ownership" thing works.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my queations.



How quickly does the Bitcoin network register the change of ownership?

If I have 5 copies of my Bitcoin and click on 5 different purchases simultaneously how would it deal with that?




How can it do that with no personally identifiable information? Do you just mean the the identifiable information is encrypted or that it doesnt exist?
If its not registering who owns it I'm not understanding how its going to work out which is the "real" bitcoin and which is the "copy". Is it just the one thats used first? It would have to be a pretty fast network to combat any fraud that way wouldnt it?

I'm not trying to be difficult with these questions, I'm just having difficulty getting my head around how the "ownership" thing works.

Likewise, if this is is "anonymous" how do you prove ownership? If the Mt Gox stuff had been insured, isn't it at that point defeating the anonymous factor? Also, at that point it's pretty much regulated. 2 points that go against the entire movement.

 

[Thump553]

If someone wrote the bitcoin saga as a movie 99% of person would dismiss it as totally unbelieveable. And this latest twist-a Magic The Gathering site transformed into a major brokerage exchange-absolutely priceless!

Common sense and nerd smarts are definately not the same thing.

 

[dr150]

If someone wrote the bitcoin saga as a movie 99% of person would dismiss it as totally unbelieveable. And this latest twist-a Magic The Gathering site transformed into a major brokerage exchange-absolutely priceless!

....Then have Leonardo di Caprio film a scene of him blowing coke into a hookers ass and have Martin Scorsese direct it for Oscar noms.

 

[Miramonti]

I too think many of those stories are likely fake. However, undoubtedly many people have lost big money with their bitcoin stupidity.

One deniable truth is that people can be insanely stupid. Even with "legitimate" ventures, it's really, really easy to lose that money. People shouldn't be investing in such high risk ventures unless they really can afford to lose it. Sure, if that high risk venture is successful, they might make returns of 1000% or something. However, I just don't understand why so many people only take this factor into account, and totally ignore the more than likely chance they'll lose their entire investment, or a big chunk of it at least.

People were considered stupid for believing in or investing in bitcoins, but not as much was made of the cardboard platform they were using called Mt Gox, which at this point it's revealed to have had the most risk. People had too much of a false sense of security from dealing with actual regulated brokerages.

 

[artvscommerce]

Looks like China is buying these up like crazy. I would have thought Mt.Gox announcing that 850,000 coins were stolen would have a bigger impact on the BTC value. Seems to be totally unphased by the news. People must really feel the bitcoin protocol has something to offer.

I can't believe Mt.Gox had so many coins in their possession. They proved to be completely incompetent back in 2011 when they lost a ton of peoples money and had everyones account credentials publicly posted online. I can't understand how ANYONE would have trusted them post-2011 with so many other options available to exchange. If that wasn't enough, you'd think the bank account seizures would have been a clue. If THAT wasnt enough, you would think people would pull their money out and run when they stopped allowing USD withdraws. (which they could have done with BTC) That was a sign of the end right there, and for some reason a lot of people still stuck by them. It's unbelievable! As high risk as bitcoin is, I haven't seen many examples of someone getting screwed over without ignoring multiple big red flags.

I don't really understand the connection people are making between the failure of mt.gox and the possible failure of bitcoin. The company was known to be incompetent and shady for a long time. Those who payed attention were never at any real risk. There are companies and people like this in every area of business. Bitcoin may seem to be attract these types of people, but that doesn't mean we can't protect ourselves from it. Just like we do in similar circumstances by exercising proper caution.