

Mt. Gox Shuts Down, Loses $409,200,000 - zvanness
http://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2014/02/25/bitcoins-mt-gox-shuts-down-loses-409200000-dollars-recovery-steps-and-taking-your-tax-losses/

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danbruc

        744,000 MtGox 2014
        400,000 MtGox 2011
        154,000 MyBitcoin 2011
         43,000 Bitcoinica 2012
      1,000,000 Satoshi early mining estimate
      ---------
      2,341,000 ~20 % of all bitcoins in circulation (12,400,000)
    

Assuming no overlap at least around 20 % of all bitcoins are not in
circulation or stolen. Just throw away the block chain, start over and make
less mistakes the second time. This would at least make the thieves unhappy,
too. ^^

~~~
shawabawa3
Not sure what not in circulation has to do with anything - it just increases
the value of all other bitcoins, it isn't a problem.

Also, this isn't how many bitcoins are stolen, this is how many _have been
stolen at some point_. How many dollars have at some point been stolen? Quite
a lot I bet

~~~
danbruc
That is why I said "assuming no overlap". The number I wanted to estimate is
the number of bitcoins (currently) not in use or in illegitimate possession;
the number of bitcoins that would not hurt anybody or hurt the right people if
one would abandon the current block chain. Satoshi not caring to lose one
million bitcoins is of course a wild guess. And don't take the whole thing to
serious because it makes a lot of not necessarily justifiable assumptions, for
example that the thieves did not already cash out their booty.

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Anderkent
No source beyond the 'leaked' presentation of questionable reliability. I
don't see how this adds any value to previous discussions:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7294762](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7294762)

~~~
lhnz

      Thus, your Bitcoin losses will be deductible forever until
      you’ve used them all. This means that the $409.2 million
      dollars is worth a potential $122.8 million dollars in tax
      refunds.
    

That looks like value to me.

I assume you did not read the article?

~~~
JonFish85
I'm not an accountant, but doesn't this assume that the person has already
paid taxes on the capital gains? Can you claim the loss if you never claimed
the gain? I can't imagine that many people with Bitcoins were rushing to pay
their taxes to the tune of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over the
last couple of years...

~~~
josephlord
If you make a $100,000 loss on an investment and the next year make a $100,000
profit on a (different) investment you can point to the loss and point out
that overall you have made no profit and therefore are liable for no tax.
Obviously each loss can only be used once.

~~~
JonFish85
Is that true? Again, I'm not an accountant, so it's an honest question. I was
always under the impression that you can write down that $100,000 loss only
$3,000/year. So the 2nd year, you'd have $97,000 profit to be taxed on.

~~~
rsanders
In the US, capital losses can be applied to capital gains without any such
limit. Perhaps you are thinking of the amount of carried forward cap loss that
can be applied to offset ordinary income.

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xumption
The referenced document was leaked and it's authenticity is uncertain.
Meanwhile mtgox is serving the following index file

    
    
         <html>
    	     <head>
    		     <title>MtGox.com</title>
    	     </head>
    	    <body>
    		    <!-- put announce for mtgox acq here -->
    	    </body>
        </html>

~~~
speeq
What does "acq" stand for? Acquisition?

~~~
jzwinck
Either that or acquiescence. :)

