

Ask HN: I have bitcoins in MtGox – So what now? - Hoozt

This might be a stupid question, but I&#x27;ll ask anyway. So for all of us who have bitcoins still at MtGox, what happens if, let&#x27;s say, MtGox just disappears tomorrow? I mean, are we protected by law at all, or are we just a bunch of digital idiots now? Too bad?
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patio11
Both.

You've got claims which can be resolved by any court of competent
jursidiction. You will find that enforcing judgments interationally is
extraordinarily expensive. If the corporate officers of Mt. Gox leave the
country with their assets, then your judgment will be worth approximately the
paper it is printed on.

If you're asking whether the Japanese government is going to backstop your
deposit, short version: "No."

From the perspective of Mt. Gox creditors, the actor you most care about right
now is probably an anonymous midlevel peon in the bowels of the risk
department at Mizuho. The action you should pray he takes is freezing
substantially all of their account value above that required for day-to-day
operations, pending instructions from competent authority as to what to do to
with those assets.

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bigiain
There's a term for financial institutions where you have a well defined legal
remedy/recourse if they abscond with your deposited money – they're called
"banks".

MtGox is _not_ a bank.

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brudgers
Idiots? No.

Bitcoins were an investment. For a time, the investment offered an opportunity
for handsome returns. Now, not so much. Like any investment it carried risk
and the potential rewards reflected that risk. A potential erosion of Mt. Gox
was part of the risk and the offered rates of return reflected that risk.

My gut says if you can describe your bits sufficiently to distinguish them
from other bits you stand a chance of recovering them. Any optimism over the
prospect should be tempered by the fact that Mt. Gox's collapse appears to be
due to their inability to distinguish one person's bits from another's. If
true, then there are no accurate records which link individuals with specific
units of currency. That of course is the premise of the whole enterprise.

