

Ask HN:  How long have you waited for a MtGox withdraw? - frankydp

I am passing the 2 month mark since I initiated a withdraw in USD from MtGox.  Should I do something?  I have not had this issue before and would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I wonder if I am an outlier or the norm.
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yebyen
I am sorry I can't answer, but I was a customer of Mt.Gox when they still had
the Dwolla option, and I haven't gone back ever since that ended.

Their support for me was delayed, I sent a question on Dec 21 and didn't hear
back until Jan 3, but here is the somewhat contradictory response they sent me
regarding my (similar inquiry that didn't involve any actual money):

Thank you for the email and sorry for the delay in response. MtGox does not
have any issues in trading bitcoins.

Currently we are facing few backlogs and we do not have an ETA for
international withdrawals. We are in the process of forming relationship with
new partners, banks and taking other steps to clear the backlog. We have
almost improved the banking system in other countries and we are working hard
to bring out a better banking system in the US for withdrawals.

At the moment we do not require any letter writers but still we appreciate
your willingness.

You would be able to trade with multiple currencies. Currently, you would be
able to trade bitcoins in EUR, CAD, GBP, CHF, RUB, AUD, SEK, DKK, HKD, PLN,
CNY, SGD, TBH, NZD and JPY.

Yes, we do have banking relationships with Europe.

(The part about the letter writers -- I mentioned that as a former customer,
and satisfied, I thought it was wrong what my government did to them, and I
would be willing to write a letter on behalf. No surprise they did not want me
to write any letter.)

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japhyr
For people on Coinbase, would this approach work?

\- withdraw btc to coinbase

\- convert to usd through coinbase

Is MtGox just slow for withdrawing USD, or are they slow for every kind of
withdrawal?

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yebyen
The reason you don't want to do this is because the price is always inflated
on Mt.Gox. Coinbase used to pretty closely mirror Bitstamp price, which is
rarely if ever as high as Mt.Gox price. Now it's usually lower, I think.

The reason the price is inflated (USD/BTC price) is of course because you can
never count on a withdrawal going through, so to get access to your USD, you
can either go to Japan (I guess, so I'm told) or take a haircut.

Presumably you could convert them to another currency, if you couldn't or
didn't want to go to Japan and establish a banking relationship there, you can
do it somewhere else that Mt.Gox customers can operate.

This is a lot to go through for a small amount of money, I'm not suggesting it
except as a last resort, or for a lot of money such that international travel
is no obstacle. I have heard of people in Japan that say Mt.Gox is a stand-up
company and withdrawals are taken care of in two days.

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japhyr
I'm not sure I asked my question clearly enough:

How easy is it to withdraw BTC from MtGox?

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yebyen
Withdraw BTC? Very easy. I've kept US$100 there for some time, I just traded
it to BTC to answer your question and withdrew it, took less than two minutes
once I found my password.

No problem at all. Except I could have got the same thing done at Coinbase for
only $92.

~~~
yebyen
The fees involved as a customer with no recent volume history and no discount
were...

trade fee: 0.00050189 BTC (0.45% of 0.11153096 BTC@$919.82263)

0.00100000 BTC (network fee, fixed 0.001 for small tx(?))

Final value of $101: 0.11002908 BTC

Value at Coinbase: $90.03 after fees of $0.91 (1%) and $0.15

I didn't transmit the coins to Coinbase, so I can't say what the network fee
would be to do that, but I think larger tx with longer coin-age (the time
since coin moved last) are exempt from those network fees. Presumably if your
goal is to unload them at Coinbase, you would send them straight to Coinbase
and pay only one network fee.

