
CoinDesk Removes Mt. Gox from Bitcoin Price Index - lelf
http://www.coindesk.com/coindesk-removes-mt-gox-bitcoin-price-index-2/
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PhasmaFelis
I am shocked, _shocked_ that anyone could have experienced issues banking with
Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange.

~~~
blhack
mtgox is just a domain name. Not only is it not the same service at this
point, it isn't even the same _owners_ at this point.

Throwing "lol Magic: The Gathering", is pretty ignorant.

~~~
anologwintermut
If a magic card trading site starts trading bitcoins using mostly it's
existing infrastructure and then sells to someone else, the question is are
the new owners still using that hacked together infrastructure? The answer
would appear to be yes.

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bunderbunder
Judging by the history that appears on the Wayback Machine, there may never
have been any card trading infrastructure to begin with. There are a few blips
of activity on the domain back in 2007, but it doesn't look like the site ever
even came close to going live. All that ever went up was a beta disclaimer and
a contact email, but no sign of any actual content, not even any real static
content. Next activity's in 2009, when the domain began hosting an online
strategy game called Far Wilds. That was apparently an abortive project, too,
because nothing happens again until Mt. Gox's launch in February 2011.

No disputing that the domain name itself was an acronym for "Magic: The
Gathering Online eXchange", but I'm failing to find any concrete evidence that
Mt. Gox's code started out as a card trading platform. Just circumstantial
evidence and speculation - that Wired article that the Mt. Gox Wikipedia
article cites as its source included.

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anologwintermut
You are correct. As far as I can tell, they never launched as a trading card
website. It's unclear if the code is related or not. There's a debate down
thread about this and the only thing on it seems to be the wired article. So
we don't really know what the code base started as (which is of course the
real question, not what the site launched as).

Depending on how the trading card site was constructed, large chunks of the
code base for exchanging cards could be used for exchanging Bitcoins (though
not, obviously the broken wallet).

It seems like a question one should ask and one that should not be dismissed
as merely "ignorant" or with the irrelevant assertion that the site is now
owned by someone else when what matters is who built it in the first place and
if that code is still in use.

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bunderbunder
I still think that there's little reason to believe there was ever any card
trading code to base Mt. Gox on in the first place.

I've only looked into this a little bit, but the more information I find the
more it seems like the relationship between Mt. Gox and Magic: The Gathering
Online Exchange has been greatly exaggerated, perhaps to a downright comical
extent. See:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7215940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7215940)

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waterlesscloud
A reasonable action at this point, though it's also worth noting Coindesk has
been anti-Gox since it started.

Which might also be a reasonable stance.

~~~
1qaz2wsx3edc
I'm still waiting on bitcoinwisdom to remove Mt.Gox. It must only be a matter
of days now.

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eiliant
Have you thought of the people with BTC stuck on Mt.Gox?

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mey
Is it correct to write off a major currency exchange because they are meeting
CoinDesk's own requirements? Especially when it's the 3rd largest exchange?

As an outsider it seems like a bias to prevent the perception of BitCoin's
value being impacted by a bad large exchange. CoinDesk is basically acting as
regulator and transparency provider, which may be exactly what is needed in
the realm of crypto-currencies as the community is supposed to be self
regulating.

~~~
pmorici
If it keeps unwiting people from dumping more money in either USD,EUR,JPY, or
BTC into that exchange then I'd say it's the right thing to do.

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hatu
I'm glad to see they're not the biggest player anymore. Their latest
shenanigans are probably to cause a big crash but not a complete chaos
(hopefully).

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jccooper
About time. There's long been a "MtGox price" and a "real price", and a price
index should not include MtGox unless and until they're liquid enough not to
distort the price.

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westiseast
It seems like MtGox is dealing with a technical issue that all the exchanges
face. From other exchanges I've received unclear, pretty floppy emails, and
some just plain ignore the issue. MtGox isn't handling it particularly well,
but isn't this something positive?

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mateuszf
No, this problem is known for long and it is not a real blocker.

See: [http://www.coindesk.com/gavin-andresen-jeff-garzik-mt-gox-
wr...](http://www.coindesk.com/gavin-andresen-jeff-garzik-mt-gox-wrong-
bitcoin-isnt-broken/)

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carrja99
Good riddance! I never used them but heard nothing but horror stores from
those who did!

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Anderkent
Probably because there's not much of a story in 'Hey, I did a transaction and
it went through without problems!'.

Selection bias anyone?

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emhart
Eh, Coindesk found that 70% of users polled were unable to pull money out of
MtGox. Even if that number were half the real rate, that's still absurd.

