
Mt. Gox Resigns Bitcoin Foundation Board Seat - olalonde
https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=462
======
sharkweek
Pardon my naivety, I don't follow much Bitcoin news except for what I read
here in passing. What happened to Mt Gox? Having trouble finding unbiased news
on the subject

~~~
Xdes
MtGox wrote their own Bitcoin wallet software.

MtGox had a bug in the wallet software that caused it to lose track of
outgoing Bitcoin transactions.

People exploited that bug to take out more Bitcoin than they had in their
MtGox account.

MtGox shut down Bitcoin withdrawals to fix the bug.

MtGox has not fixed the bug three weeks later and a lot of their customers are
anxious.

~~~
sharkweek
So people with money frozen by MtGox are w/o recourse while the funds crash?
Yikes...

Kind of reminds me of that online poker company that got in trouble with the
law and people were trading "[name of company, I forgot] dollars" for below
value in an attempt to recoup some of their funds.

~~~
avalaunch
Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet were the 3
affected by what is known as "black friday" in the poker community. Poker
Stars paid back players relatively quickly so I'm not sure anyone sold any of
their frozen assets on that site. For Absolute Poker, the exchange rate began
at 50 cents on the dollar and plummeted quickly from there all the way down to
1 cent on the dollar. For Full Tilt, the exchange rate started higher but also
eventually went as low as 1 cent on the dollar. 14 months after black friday,
Poker Stars bought Full Tilt Poker and has since returned all funds owed to
Full Tilt players. Ultimate Bet still has not paid any players back and likely
never will.

Fun story: I was a professional online poker player when black friday
happened. And I just happened to be in Guatemala, on my honeymoon. Prior to
going on my honeymoon, I had experienced the worst downswing in my career and
all we had left (about 20k) was now frozen in my Poker Stars account. When we
returned home, we didn't have enough to make the next month's mortgage
payment. What we did have was about 1k in cash from our wedding gifts. The
night after we got back, I took that 1k to the local casino and played in the
highest cash game I could buy into. It was high risk but I didn't have time to
grind it out at lower stakes. Luckily I went on an amazing heater, ran the 1k
up to 10k and that was enough to last us until Poker Stars unfroze my account.

~~~
hangonhn
"The night after we got back, I took that 1k to the local casino and played in
the highest cash game I could buy into. It was high risk but I didn't have
time to grind it out at lower stakes. Luckily I went on an amazing heater, ran
the 1k up to 10k and that was enough to last us until Poker Stars unfroze my
account."

That's a fantastic story my friend. It took some luck but also a lot of guts
and self confidence to do that. Glad you managed it.

~~~
levosmetalo
> That's a fantastic story my friend. It took some luck but also a lot of guts
> and self confidence to do that. Glad you managed it.

Story is fantastic, but I'm not glad he did it. I would like it much more if
he understood that gambling is a zero sum game except for gambling companies,
and stopped playing it after learning a lesson.

~~~
avalaunch
I'm well aware that poker is a zero sum game, at least as far as the exchange
of money is concerned. That being said, that doesn't mean that playing
professionally provides no value to society. As with any game or sport,
there's a certain entertainment value provided to those that play as well as
those that watch. Even those players that never make it on tv help to provide
the foundation for the ecosystem needed to provide the entertainment on a
global level, in the same manner that minor league sporting athletes help
support the majors.

All that being said, the entire reason I was devoting time and effort to my
side projects was the belief that I could derive more meaning from life doing
something other than poker. I was already trying to transition to something
new. Black Friday just gave me a giant kick in the ass.

Also, poker is not gambling, at least not the way I play.

~~~
levosmetalo
Well, in that case I can only congratulate you for getting rid of the poker.
I'm glad that you had a rational approach and kept kalm that allowed you way
out.

And about poker being not gambling, well I don't agree. However smart you
play, as much as you count on the statistics, in the end of the day, there's
still luck involved. Even if it were only pure skill game, you can't always
know skill level of your opponents :)

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
"However smart you play, as much as you count on the statistics, in the end of
the day, there's still luck involved."

I guess absolutely everything we do in life is gambling, then :)

~~~
alxndr
Not everything I do involves competing with someone else for both my own and
their money.

------
olalonde
Charlie Shrem (of Bitinstant fame) claims that he had a lengthy talk with Mark
Karpeles and "good news on the horizon for people who have funds stuck in
MtGox".
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1yre42/mt_gox_ceo_r...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1yre42/mt_gox_ceo_resigns_from_bitcoin_foundation/cfn38sq)

~~~
Aqueous
I think we're in a bad spot when the only BitCoin figure Mark Karpeles is
willing to talk to just got arrested himself.

~~~
downandout
If Mt. Gox crashes owing as much money as I think they do, Charlie and Mark
will be sharing a cell.

~~~
Aqueous
I'd be hoping for the safety of a prison cell if I were Karpeles. I'd imagine
the security situation is very bad for them right now. It seems like the BTC
are there, though, especially if Gox was following even rudimentary security
procedures...

BitCoin just got very serious and much less fun. I guess that's what happens
when it suddenly accounts for real, actual money and real actual livelihoods.
I sincerely hope everyone gets through safely.

I use CoinBase which (seems like it) is slightly more reputable.

Edit: Madoff was much more. Still, this would be significant.

~~~
miles
_If those BTC are gone, this is either the largest-scale loss of money in
history or the largest scale theft of money, dwarfing even Madoff._

12,437,700 bitcoins have been mined, with a market cap today of around $7.4B
[1]. Madoff scammed investors to the tune of around $50B [2], so even if MtGox
owned every bitcoin ever mined, they would have a bit of catching up to do.

[1] [http://bitcoinwatch.com/](http://bitcoinwatch.com/)

[2] [http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/12/madoff-ponzi-hedge-pf-ii-
in...](http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/12/madoff-ponzi-hedge-pf-ii-
in_rl_1212croesus_inl.html)

~~~
saalweachter
The final tally of Madoff's scam was $57 billion, but that number is based off
the fictional account balances, including both fictional profits and
reinvestments of fictional profits.

Apparently about $36 billion was paid in, and $18 billion paid out, and about
$10 billion recovered, leaving about $8 billion(!) "missing". All the numbers
are still bigger than both BTC and Gox, though.

Although, didn't the US literally lose something like $10 billion in cash in
Iraq/Afghanistan?

------
zoba
So are we supposed to conclude from this that we won't be getting our Bitcoin
out of Mt Gox?

~~~
Xdes
It is anyone's guess. The MtGox developers have been far from transparent
about their current roadblocks. The MtGox BTC price will continue to fall the
longer this charade continues. The other exchanges will likely rebound once
MtGox is out of the press. MtGox has deviated too much to be relevant in the
fast pace of Bitcoin trading. No rational consumer is going to trust them
going forward.

~~~
DrStalker
Could this be a plan to drive down the BTC price on MtGox, let the MtGox
admins buy out their entire supply at bargain prices and then they can
manually transfer their coins out? They might be able to make enough profit
there to cover the losses from the hack, depending on how much they lost.

------
the_watcher
Does anyone with a lot of knowledge about this have any idea on whether or not
Mt. Gox will return? I've got a small amount of BTC in there (so small that it
isn't an issue to lose). However, I'd prefer to move it to another exchange
than just punt it.

------
dschiptsov
"Money? What money?"

------
mvanveen
Interesting, the Bitcoin Foundation logo is still visible on the MtGox front
page as of 8:43 PM PST on Sunday.

~~~
olalonde
He resigned from the board but he will likely remain a member. Those are two
distinct things.

~~~
smtddr
It's not "He"(Mark) anymore. Article has since been updated, it's MtGox as a
whole that resigned.

~~~
maaku
Mt Gox resigned the board seat Karpeles currently holds. Karpeles is still a
founding member of the foundation, and Mt Gox is still a gold sponsor of the
foundation.

------
radarsat1
Should I move my BTC to a different exchange? Which one would you suggest?

~~~
deelowe
Um... the whole point of all this hoopla is that you can't.

~~~
radarsat1
Yeah... good point.

------
thechut
I have USD and Bitcoin in Mt. Gox. Will I still be able to withdraw my USD?

~~~
mcdougle
I tried to withdraw at the start of January. Their site says it should take 4
weeks. It's been almost 2 months and I still haven't gotten it. Not that I'm
surprised or anything, but I wouldn't expect to be able to withdraw any time
soon.

------
austinstorm
Gosh, that doesn't seem like a good sign?

------
hooda
every new technology/revolution goes through turmoil, just like BitCoin is
going through now. GodSpeed BitCoin!!

