
Statement Regarding Temporary Hiatus on U.S. Dollar Withdrawals - citricsquid
https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130620.html
======
colanderman
FFS, the original title, something like "Mt. Gox suspends U.S. Dollar
Withdrawls for two weeks", was FINE.

"Statement Regarding Temporary Hiatus on U.S. Dollar Withdrawals" makes NO
SENSE out of context.

Mods: Please STOP rewriting titles to match the page! You're NOT doing it
right!

~~~
GigabyteCoin
Another suggestion would be to add a little "title edited by: MOD_USERNAME"
tag to any edited titles so we could at least keep track of the moderators who
are doing it incorrectly.

As it stands, I have no idea if pg himself edited the title or if it was some
random user who recently acquired the correct amount of karma.

~~~
xnxn
> or if it was some random user who recently acquired the correct amount of
> karma

I certainly hope moderatorship isn't granted based on a karma threshold.

~~~
pyre
If it's based on a karma threshold, I haven't reached it yet, which would mean
that the bar is fairly high.

~~~
jafaku
If you want karma all you have to do is submit a lot of garbage, just keep it
coming. Most of your submissions will get 0 votes, a few will get you 10 or 20
votes, and one or two will get you 300-400. That's how downvoters get their
downvoting powers.

Another option is to submit quality comments for a decade without being banned
for saying something against Ruby or whatever the mods are emotionally or
economically attached to at the time. Then you may be able to downvote.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
>Another option is to submit quality comments for a decade without being
banned for saying something against Ruby or whatever the mods are emotionally
or economically attached to at the time. Then you may be able to downvote.

That strategy has worked for me.

~~~
stephencanon
> created: 741 days ago

That’s one short decade!

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patio11
Hate to quote myself, but see the P.S. here:
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5568610](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5568610)

If I were a gambling man, I'd say this is quite likely to be shoe #1.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Hardly shoe #1, more like #8 or #9. With the take down of Liberty Reserve, the
killing off of a number of exchanges and interfaces to exchanges, its pretty
clear the US Government at least has decided to focus for a time on the
financial infrastructure which underpins a big chunk of Internet criminal
activity. The privacy advocates are getting somewhat caught in the crossfire.

As a company that works with internet advertisers, we see the shadowy parts of
the web shimmering there on the periphery, lots of people are trying to scam
Google out of some of its advertising revenue, it is a full time job to
identify and quash fraudulent traffic here at Blekko, I know from experience
that there are many folks at Google that do nothing but that.

But more than that, it says that these activities have reached the nation-
state level of attention. Which puts the global losses in the 150 to 200
billion dollars annually.

The effect of that is what Patrick experienced where regulators start
effectively 'regex' banning types of activities that are associated with these
activities. It's a cold compress on an arterial bleed, not a solution but
something to stem the blood loss while other measures are being taken.

It is really all about cash though. When crime doesn't pay, people don't do
it. So focusing on making it hard to get paid is the strategy it seems to work
on Internet criminal activity. If I had to bet I'd say that someone in the
Treasury department has a goal of (ideally) making it impossible to use
BitCoin to facilitate criminal activity, through a series of regulations
requiring transaction reporting and verification, killing off exchanges that
don't do that, and pressuring partners to do the same.

~~~
downandout
It doesn't really make it _that_ hard to cash in. See
[http://localbitcoins.com](http://localbitcoins.com) . You'll just get a
slightly lower exchange rate. If they thought they didn't want people
receiving traceable wire transfers from Mt. Gox, imagine how little they will
like the alternative they are pushing people to - in-person cash trades.

 _> The effect of that is what Patrick experienced where regulators start
effectively 'regex' banning types of activities that are associated with these
activities._

What Patrick experienced is a symptom of the rules surrounding ACH
transactions - namely that they can be charged back up to 6 months later (1
year in some cases). That makes banks squeamish about accounts receiving large
numbers of them. I don't think ACH transactions in general are "associated"
with criminal activity - most paychecks are delivered this way.

~~~
Nursie
In person cash trades are easier to bust. Especially if there's much in the
way of volume or the transactions are sizeable.

They are also far more hassle and potentially dangerous.

Don't pretend that making electronic transfers harder wouldn't suppress the
market to some extent.

~~~
ensignavenger
Yeah, but there is nothing illegal about an in-person cash trade, so what are
you going to bust them for? (Well, I suppose the cops can always find
something to bust someone on...)

~~~
Nursie
There are all sorts of inventive ways the cops can seize money, especially if
the amounts are both large and frequent.

In some places carrying huge amounts of cash is more than enough to get the
cash temporarily impounded pending investigation, even with no other immediate
suspicious circumstances.

Besides which, the point was that (in general) forcing users into these sorts
of arrangements is much more onerous on them than just sorting it all out
electronically.

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downandout
For those willing to wait, this should temporarily make arbitrage more
profitable. People that cannot wait 2 weeks for withdrawals will have to use
their USD balances at Mt Gox to (re)purchase Bitcoins, which can then be moved
to other exchanges and sold. This will cause a temporary, artificial increase
in demand at Mt Gox only, leading to a higher-than-normal price differential
between it and other exchanges.

That said, this is only the latest snafu with these guys. I am tired of all of
the issues at Mt. Gox. Someone else really needs to step up in their place.

~~~
tlrobinson
Indeed, MtGox is trading about 5% higher than other USD exchanges right now.

There is a (small?) risk that this could be a sign of bigger trouble to come.
I don't know if I'd be comfortable leaving USD funds in MtGox right now. Maybe
that's a risk others are willing to take.

~~~
downandout
Agreed. It may be smarter at this point to buy Bitcoins with you USD balance
and sell them for EUR, GBP or JPY. The volumes are smaller but it is possible.

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sneak
A reminder: bitcoin, like tor, is useless if the government has a realtime
analysis of the L3 network traffic of a majority of the participants, as we
have learned they do in the US under NSA's MAINWAY and MARINA programs.

~~~
pvnick
Is there any theoretical way to defeat these programs and ensure anonymity?
I'm even suspect of SSL given private keys can probably be demanded through
FISA court.

~~~
zachrose
Use separate hardware on public wifi. Take the battery out when you're done.

~~~
tlrobinson
Was that a joke?

What does public WiFi have to do with anything? We're talking about the NSA
wiretapping Internet backbones and forging SSL certificates.

~~~
sneak
We're not talking about forging ssl certs and never have been. NSA doesn't do
that and never will, for reasons which are totally obvious if actually think
about what would happen if they did.

~~~
tlrobinson
By "forge" I meant using the private keys (obtained through FISA, or possibly
cracked) to either decrypt or MITM SSL sessions, not using one of their own
CAs to create a valid but obviously fake certificate, which I assume is what
you thought I meant.

Maybe "forge" was the wrong word.

~~~
Robin_Message
I think (not an expert) that with elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman (which e.g.
Google uses), even with the private key _and_ the whole session, you still
can't decrypt the session (Diffie-Hellman provides a secure channel,
public/private proves the server is who it says it is).

~~~
sneak
That is correct. These are referred to as ECDHE, or DHE for the non-ECC
variant (vanilla DH). The last e is "ephemeral", referring to the lifetime of
the session key.

The property that this provides is known as "forward secrecy".

------
jerguismi
LocalBitcoins.com still up and running: [https://localbitcoins.com/sell-
bitcoins-online/usd/](https://localbitcoins.com/sell-bitcoins-online/usd/)

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clarkmoody

      as well as debuting a dramatically improved trading engine
      which will be launching very soon
    

They wedged that one in there at the last minute, but this tidbit could have
more impact on the future of the company than the rest of the release. One of
the main gripes of Mt. Gox has been the lag-prone trading engine and the
spotty real-time data feed.

Fixing those two things could help them keep customers they have and
potentially attract more traders who rely on speed in their strategies.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
imho they're just serving up a compliment sandwhich of sorts:
[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=compliment%20...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=compliment%20sandwich)

------
rheide
Just FYI, I made 6 bank withdrawals in Euro two months ago, and I still have
only received 3 of them. They've used up all their goodwill with me.

~~~
tvararu
Currency of the future. I've also been waiting on my second withdrawal
forever.

~~~
bdcravens
Your withdrawing in your local currency, right? The problem is with Mt. Gox
and their ability to give you fiat, not Bitcoin.

~~~
betterunix
Yeah, and what do you think would happen to Bitcoin if all the exchanges
vanished? How long do you think the Bitcoin economy can survive on its own?

The reality is that for the majority of its users, Bitcoin is not a currency;
it is just a way to make payments in other currencies.

~~~
jafaku
So it's like gold, but better.

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thejosh
Any theories how this will fair for the market cost of Bitcoin?

~~~
Drakim
Although it could have some impact, your money isn't "locked" with MtGox due
to being able to transfer it to another exchange as Bitcoins, and cash it out
as another currency there.

~~~
bdcravens
Most on Mt. Gox don't have secondary accounts, and this is more likely for
those who are looking to make short term $ (and who tend to panic sell). For
the various exchanges they could move to, what's the turnover time to be able
to trade and more importantly, make USD withdrawals? Will the other exchanges
be ready for this? How exacerbated could this be if there's a price drop?

~~~
unreal37
A comment based entirely on speculation. Do you know for a fact that most
people on Mt Gox don't already have another account elsewhere or can't figure
out how to create one?

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zikzikzik
Is this possibly a canary?

~~~
jstanley
For what?

~~~
prawks
I believe he may have been implying that the cause is somehow linked to an
outside agency, which in the case of Bitcoin discussions usually implies a
government body somewhere.

------
bdcravens
As many mentioned, you can easily move your Bitcoins out. However, I'd posit
that 75% or more of accounts on Mt. Gox do not have a verified account
elsewhere. Are the other exchanges prepared for the increased load if it
comes? If one or two have downtime, what will that do to the price?

~~~
drcode
> you can easily move your Bitcoins out

As long as they don't run out of bitcoins (I'm not claiming they've been
spending their depositors' bitcoins, just pointing out that it's a theoretical
risk.)

