>Technical expertise of Mark Karpeles, CEO of Mtgox, as a leader in network security, systems development, and cryptocurrency.
Clearly.
>Mark is a young technopreneur with more than 15 years experience ins oftware development, network administration and entrepreneurship. Mark is well-versed in multiple programming languages, has a strong background in network security, and is well-known in the tech community.
This is a fantasy. Mark is quite likely going to jail for a very long time, along with at least some of his fellow staff members. At market value they are something like $400 million in debt.
This ridiculous idea that the world can't live without Mt. Gox, which has been clearly communicated in both this document and the previously leaked crisis memo, shows signs of serious narcissism in whomever is behind them. Whatever PR/political damage their crisis has inflicted upon Bitcoin has already been done and could not be reversed even if they were saved. These executives should spend more time trying to find non-extradition countries that will take them and less time living in fantasy land.
You can't go to jail for losing $400 million, you can go to jail for stealing it. You are implying that he has committed a some real crime beyond incompetence?
Depends on which theory or report we accept as truth at the moment, but it also sounds like there could be negligence involved - and that can be prosecuted.
I'm sure there are some AG's and Prosecutors frothing at the mouth right now to get there hands on Mr. Karpeles.
Edit: Even if the judicial system doesn't get MK... his life is probably ruined at this point if he cannot recover the funds - either because of reputation or personal safety. Bitcoin is the Wild West and there seem to quite a few shady and nefarious actors within the community.
losing the money was not the crime, trying to cover it up and engage in dubious practices like using customer fiat funds to shore up your company, buy btc (on gox at $150) to sell on other exchanges (bitstamp at $500) is likely to be the root of their legal woes not that they wer ehacked and lost 750k coins.
Their cover up is what will bring legal repercussions.
I have no idea how accurate this is, but Mark seemed to believe they were "operating within the law":
"Karpeles replied that the matter is “confidential,” adding that the company had discussed its business model with Japanese authorities “to ensure that we are operating within the law here.”"
Negligence that leads to bodily harm, ya; but negligence that leads to monetary losses is probably a civil rather than criminal matter. It depends on the jurisdiction for sure, some developing world countries might see it as criminal.
> At market value they are something like $400 million in debt
I haven't followed that closely because I don't particularly care about MtGox aside from popcorn value, but I'm not sure how you would know that from the information that's currently public. As far as we know we kind of think we know the number of bitcoins they lost, but not the amount of cash/btc assets they still have.
Oh right, so if those numbers are correct they're heavily insolvent even if they somehow managed to write off the btc owed. I'd been wondering about that.
This starts to remind me of the whole SCO vs Linux thing.
This document seems like fairly conclusive evidence that they've lost access to >700,000 bitcoins, because there's no reason for them to spend time putting together the document otherwise.
It looks like they won't die without a fight. I don't think they're coming back from this one though. Unless they repay everyone and have a good explanation as to what the past week is all about I'm pretty sure Mt.Gox has ruined it's image ( if it had one haha..).
hard to say when no one really knows what 'this one' even is.
of course this whole thing creates a loss of faith in the exchange, but if they somehow restored all the accounts I bet people would be willing to forget about it pretty quickly..
I, however, believe that to be unlikely given their response to the situation.
> Security: MtGox has a solid IT infrastructure, protected from DDOS attacks and hackers by a number of security providers and we continue to develop several customized security features for customers in order to protect their account.
> Speed: MtGox runs an highly efficient trading engine that will compete enormously against the capabilities of our competitors. We will also develop more efficient fund transfer infrastructures to ensure that customers can send or receive money to/from their MtGox accounts within 3 business days.
Someone needs to run them through the difference between Weaknesses and Threats. They've got plenty of threats even if they make it through this and ignoring them in the SWOT is laughable.
I hadn't realized how much equity the CEO retained, 82%?. Am I interpreting this number wrong? This seems like as good of a reason as any to suspect either his team was grossly incompetent or significantly underpaid. Karpeles doesn't strike me as being a Zuckerberg, and you don't get to Mt. Gox market cap without giving up a little share to your collaborators.
Outside of that hilarity, this thing seriously is either fake or a scary indictment of the lack of acumen and precision demanded by an organization of this type.
How often does a grunting, surly herd of "male 20-40 year olds, with a deep distrust for established financial systems", organize on your tiny Japanese farm and crap gold nuggets towards each other?
If you tried to cope with everyone's varying view of blasphemy on a public forum, there isn't much you could say.
Also, you can only really take a gods name in vain if you happen to believe in that god, otherwise it is merely a culturally acquired exclamation. If I say "By Zeus, that bathwater is hot.", I am not being blasphemous unless I believe that Zeus exists.
> Of course they were virtual cards, that's what a "Magic: The Gathering Online" Exchange would be.
I think the confusion is that some people parse it incorrectly as "Magic: The Gathering" + "Online Exchange" rather than as "Magic: The Gathering Online" + "Exchange", so think that it was (planned to be) an exchange for physical rather than virtual cards.
The problem is, it paid off. We've all been saying "Um, maybe doing major financial exchanges with an outfit so unprofessional that they do business under an initialism for 'Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange' isn't such a great idea." And now it turns out we were 100% right. So...there's no joke anymore. It's just historical fact now.
>Technical expertise of Mark Karpeles, CEO of Mtgox, as a leader in network security, systems development, and cryptocurrency.
Clearly.
>Mark is a young technopreneur with more than 15 years experience ins oftware development, network administration and entrepreneurship. Mark is well-versed in multiple programming languages, has a strong background in network security, and is well-known in the tech community.
That last part is certainly true now.