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MtGox Files For Bankruptcy Protection
Sockatume writes "The beleaguered MtGox bitcoin exchange has officially filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bitcoin held an impromptu press conference that addressed recent rumors. They state that they have over $60m in liabilities against just $30m in assets, and confirm the loss of over $500m worth of Bitcoins, split between customers' balances (750,000 BTC) and company assets (100,000 BTC). Owner Mark Karpeles said, 'There was some weakness in the system, and the bitcoins have disappeared. I apologize for causing trouble.'"
The weakness was apparently down to the site treating a txid (transaction ID) field as a unique identifier. Turns out not only was it not actually a unique transaction identifier, it could also be spoofed easily without altering the (real) destination for the transaction. Made it trivial to make fake deposits and real withdrawals.
MTGox's fault for not understanding a spec whilst using it to move vast sums around but it probably highlights the importance of good naming practices when creating a spec.
This one's on me and not the editors, somehow I went from "the exchange's owner so-and-so" to "the exchange" to "Bitcoin" in the space of about half a cup of coffee. Although the image of the bitcoin network showing up in person is an amusing one.
I'm annoyed with myself because the misconception that this is a Bitcoin issue and not a MtGox issue is one I try to dispel.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
This is like the 4th or 5th exchange that has gone bust, right?
Actually more like 18, but MtGox counts as the first major exchange to fail. The rest of those amount to you or I throwing up an "exchange" as our CompSci101 project and then vanishing when they lost their shirts.
The loss of MtGox definitely counts as a blow to Bitcoin, but as others will no doubt point out, it had already started "failing" months ago (when you have a good 20% price spread vs the next highest exchange and you don't see arbitrage occurring on a massive scale, you know you have a problem). Any fools with either USD or BTC left in Gox since the beginning of the year (and even before that) pretty much stopped paying attention and deserve what they got.
And the effect on the BTC market since then bears that out - The price initially plummeted, but has already stabilized at 2/3rds its previous stable value. If anything, this counted (and still does, IMO) as a great opportunity to get in during a market correction and load up on deeply discounted BTC.
When declaring bankruptcy you have to declare assets and liabilities. If the liabilities are in other currencies you have to declare them too, usually in the local currency equivalent.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
And next time someone comes in and robs them blind, will the perpetrators be buttpirates?
Already been done by "pirateat40" (aka Trendon Shavers).
Dude was offering 1% per week returns on an "investment" that he refused to give any information about because of his "proprietary business model".
There was no shortage of dupes lining up to give him their coins.