MtGox Sets Up Call Center For Worried Bitcoiners

An anonymous reader writes "Did you lose bitcoins in the MtGox debacle and are worried that you'll never get them back? Fear not, a call center has been set up in Japan to help allay your fears. From the article: 'Bitcoin investors left hanging by the sudden shuttering of the MtGox electronic market will soon have a way to learn more about the fate of their cryptocurrency holdings—a Japanese phone hotline. In an announcement on the company's website, MtGox said that a call center had been set up to handle inquiries about the company. The call center will go live on the morning of March 3, Japan time.'"

Comments

Regulation of currency

[delt0r]

The history of paper money is interesting as is fractional reserve banking. What a lot of people don't realize is that we the public asked for it to be regulated. And for good reason. The problem i have with bitcoin and bitcoin fans, is they seem to think bitcoin is somehow immune to all the things that went wrong with normal currencies. Its not.

Re:Regulation of currency

[Anonymous Coward]

The cost of doing business with BTC is unacceptably high when every person needs to do their own research.

That is another failure with under-regulated markets. In those markets, people's time is expected to be worthless. Every person is expected to spend lots of time reading up on all sorts of stuff that is irrelevant in a well-regulated market.

The bitcoin people are probably reading all ToS on all websites they visit as well, right? RIGHT?

Re:Regulation of currency

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitcoin is still young. This is a time or risk and opportunity. Besides, if you really think anyone should invest money, for example in the stock market, without spending lots of time reading up on all sorts of stuff, I have a bridge to sell you.

Re:Regulation of currency

[MadKeithV]

Bitcoin is still young. This is a time or risk and opportunity. Besides, if you really think anyone should invest money, for example in the stock market, without spending lots of time reading up on all sorts of stuff, I have a bridge to sell you.

Monkeys do better than people in the stock market - I'm sure they did lots of market research beforehand though.

Re:Regulation of currency

[Sockatume]

Indeed, MtGox managed to devalue everyone's assets by half without creating any inflation whatsoever. What an amazing innovation.

Re:Regulation of currency

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

BTC is definitely too 'buyer beware' to really make it as a currency in its present state; but it's worth noting that there is apparently (a whole lot) of money in adding incomprehensibility to even relatively well behaved currencies. You don't want to let that side of the market get out of hand (Why hello there, world financial crisis, we were just talking about you, those functionally-impossible-to-value instruments, and assorted similar wacky stories...)

Once you count the dreadful freakshows grafted onto real currencies, BTC actually scores relatively low on complexity, on average; but the trouble is that there isn't really a 'safe for noobs' option.

With USD and friends, you should Stay Out Of The Deep End, because that's where the sharks live; but (in no small part because regulators stepped in to make it so) just getting a smallish bank account isn't a harrowing experience.

Re:Regulation of currency

[jones_supa]

Or a phone from a company that began by selling fish and vegetables in the 1930s.

Re:Regulation of currency

[Buck Feta]

Or database management software from a company that started out making punch clocks and meat slicers? (or, for that matter, database management from an online bookstore?)

Re:Regulation of currency

[squiggleslash]

I really don't get the impression Bitcoin's fans are the paragons of rationality you're painting them as. And in particular, I take exception with the quote "don't throw money at companies that look shady as hell like MtGox did before it blew."

Some observations:

1. I've read numerous op-eds (op-eds!) over the past week suggesting Mt. Gox's collapse has made everything safer because there's one less bad actor, and those who remain in the Bitcoin world are more mature.

2. There's no recognition that Mt. Gox was, until 6-9 months ago, a highly regarded exchange that was frequently recommended, cited, and so on. It didn't corner the percentage of the market it got to despite everyone thinking it was "sleazy". It got there because of word of mouth. Suddenly it "always sleazy", "everyone knew", and "OMG it was originally something to do with Magic: The Gathering, right?"

3. Many now claiming they "always knew" and are citing things they said 6-9 months ago, after Mt. Gox had already started collapsing and after it had started to become problematic getting money out. Presumably the same people would have said "I always knew the Titanic was badly designed, look at this transcript of a conversation I had on the deck at 12.30am on 15th April 1912. This is what represents "doing research" in the Bitcoin community?

4. Many are now pretending that Mt. Gox provided an unnecessary service and are finding other reasons to blame the victim. What exactly is a "safe" way to manage Bitcoins if you're technically skilled (or are generally technically skilled but also more than aware that you frequently overestimate your own competence?)

5. Where, seriously, are the serious proposals to make Mt. Gox style collapses impossible in the future? In the regulated dollar world, we have the FDIC, and we have each bank subject to minimum standards of security so that the vast majority of customers will not face problems if a bank fails. Or are you seriously going to tell me that the magic fairies of the invisible hand of the market are going to prevent these collapses in the future?

Re:Regulation of currency

[DarkOx]

In those markets, people's time is expected to be worthless. Every person is expected to spend lots of time reading up on all sorts of stuff that is irrelevant in a well-regulated market.

No its not worthless its an investment in risk management. Your alternative is they invest tax dollars in paying a small army of regulators and politicians to in theory look out for their interests instead. Look how well the events of 2008-2013 show that works.

And don't try say it was because of "deregulation" it was because of changed and stupid regulations not deregulation which has essentially never happened in finance. Real deregulation would mean repealing laws without replacements. When most of our politicians say "deregulation" what they really mean is we are giving a select group of already successful incumbent operators a license to steal.

Re:Regulation of currency

[ConfusedVorlon]

unacceptably high for whom?

There are plenty of cases where the cost/risk might be acceptable.

If I want to buy something for $100 and anonymity is important, then I may well be happy to risk losing my $100.

Similarly if I have a bunch of illicit cash and I can convert it into bitcoin - I might be willing to risk losing it rather than risk it coming to the attention of the authorities.

Is bitcoin suitable for your average person to store their pension savings? Almost certainly not. That doesn't mean the cost (risk) is unacceptably high for everyone though.

Re:Regulation of currency

[Anonymous Coward]

The cost of doing business with BTC is unacceptably high when every person needs to do their own research.

You certainly have to be more careful, but on the other hand the average tax payer won't have to pay for the MtGox collapse like they did for the banking crisis.

Re:Regulation of currency

[Dagger2]

It sounds like you don't want regulation of Bitcoin per se, but instead regulation of exchanges. Or, more generally, you want regulation of anybody to which you give money with the expectation of getting it back. I'd expect that legislation to exist already, because the concept of "a company which holds on to your money for a bit" is one that's existed for a long time before Bitcoin.

As an aside: as far as I'm aware, Paypal does not come with this protection in the US. They can take your money, and there's sod all you can do about it. In Europe, Paypal is a bank... but actually, according to their website, don't qualify for deposit protection anyway, so they can happily go bust and your deposits won't be covered.

It's notable that people still use Paypal.

Re:Regulation of currency

[JoeMerchant]

Monkeys do better than people in the stock market - I'm sure they did lots of market research beforehand though.

But you really want a rate of return better than a monkey, otherwise you might as well invest in index funds, how boring is that?

So the trick is to identify when people, in general, are being less-smart than monkeys and then run in the opposite direction.

It's not an easy business, outsmarting the monkeys - that's why it's better to be lucky than smart.

Re:Regulation of currency - 2 issues

[meander]

1) bitcoin value goes up and down, so does everything else. Live with it or dont use it.

2) Storing your bitcoins on a server owned by someone else is like giving your cash to someone you dont know. Maybe it will still be there, maybe it wont. If you are on Linux, or Windows or OSX, use a client like electrum (electrum.org). You can store the bitcoin wallet on your own computer, without relying on some not so trusted intermediary. You do do backups dont you?

Yesterday I transferred most of my bitcoin stash (~$500 Aussie) into my own wallet on my own computer, and backed it up elsewhere.

The bitcoin is now safe, the value of it may change up and down. Bit like owning shares, isn't it?

Re:Reality Intrudes

[Sockatume]

Not quite true: self-organising systems can regulate themselves into surprisingly resilient equilibria. This is why the economy doesn't need constant micro-management; feedback loops like supply and demand tend to damp out perturbations. However there's no reason to suppose that any given equilibrium arising from any given set of constraints and feedbacks will be optimal for whatever outcome you're looking for, be it quality of life, GDP per capita, or whatever. The "laissez faire capitalism is implied by self-organisation" argument tends to assume without evidence that the best equilibrium is the one you fall into with the set of feedbacks and constraints that the proponent's flavour of laissez faire capitalism favours. However it's important to remember that there's no reason to assume that the equilibrium produced by the current set of rules is optimal, either.

It's also important to remember that if your system naturally falls out of its current equilibrium (which is a thing self-organising systems can do) you will need to change the feedbacks and constraints or apply an external force to get it back to where it was. Basically, you can't walk away and say "this system is inherently able to look after us, if we leave it alone", just on the basis of its being a self-organising system.