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.'"

Comments

Falkvinge et all investigaton suggests inside job

[davecb]

The Gox Crater: Crowd Detectives Reveal Billion-Dollar Heist As Inside Job
Thousands of volunteering and self-organizing detectives have been meticulously laying a puzzle that reveals the Gox billion-dollar heist as an inside job. As smoke clears on the implosion of the Empty Gox bitcoin exchange, thousands of people in the community committed to revealing the truth behind the stonewalling exchange. What was claimed first to be a technical problem, then an outside theft, has been conclusively determined that the MtGox management knew too much, too long ago, to have this be an ordinary case of theft.

Re:Ha ha

[Anonymous Coward]

For a start, I doubt you understand what FUD means.

I also fear you didn't actually read the article, just summary borked by Slashdot "editing".

I'm uncertain what they meant to say, but I guess they meant either "Bitcoin Foundation" (Karpeles was one of board members there and now resigned) or "Bitcoin exchange" (i.e. MtGox).

How can they have only $60M of liabilities?

[JoeyRox]

When they lost $500M in Bit Coins, most of which belonged to their customers? Are they not treating customer deposits as a liability? Shouldn't that interest be represented in the bankruptcy proceeding?

Interesting attack on Bitcoin

[wiredog]

From the AP Story

a weakness in the exchange's systems was behind a massive loss of the virtual currency involving 750,000 bitcoins from users and 100,000 of the company's own bitcoins. That would amount to about $425 million at recent prices.

The reactions of the various Japanese government officials are interesting. Essentially, there was no "theft" because Bitcoin is not a "real" currency. Which is an interesting attack. Anyone can steal your bitcoins and you have no recourse to the law because it isn't actually theft.