4 ms·

Mark, the security errors in Mt Gox cost me sums of money that would have completely changed the life of myself and my family. Mostly I have moved on from this

by zoba 6y ago

Mark, the security errors in Mt Gox cost me sums of money that would have completely changed the life of myself and my family. Mostly I have moved on from this, but occasionally I multiply my Mt Gox holdings by the current price of Bitcoin and imagine how life could be. I have never heard you express sorrow for the individuals whose lives you so negatively impacted. I have no idea if you have plans to make amends for this. Even now, the top of r/MtGoxInsolvency is a post about opening an exchange again to earn money back for the creditors. Do you have any thoughts on how to make things right? https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgoxinsolvency/comments/ldnrxv/reopening_the_exchange_a_discussion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgoxinsolvency/comments/ldnrxv/reo.... Yes of course I'm a part of the legal proceedings, but those seem to never end, and seem unlikely to bring any significant recompense. I can't imagine living a life where so many people direct such incredible ill will towards myself, as you live. Especially given that early Bitcoin folks were often disreputable, and the amount of money you cost them, I assume you must have concerns for your own physical safety. I hope that you'll consider those of us who are still hurt by your negligence by choosing your words and presence carefully.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dfhjklk 6y ago
This is a very thinly veiled threat.
downandout 6y ago
I originally started my HN account to ask what I should do when my cofounder screwed me out of $12.8 million I was owed as the result of the sale of our company that he forced me out of and sold without telling me. My username came from that era of my life. I cannot even begin to describe how different my life would be had my cofounder not done this. It is unlikely that I will ever again create something that valuable, and accordingly I have a profound sense of loss over it. So speaking from personal experience...while your anger is completely justified, you have to let it go, or it will destroy you. It’s just one of those things - a random, traumatic event that instantly and irrevocably changes the trajectory of your life, that you can do nothing about. These are jarring reminders that the world is a cold and unfair place, that the universe is not in fact looking out for us, and that people are not “mostly good” as many of us were raised to believe. But holding grudges, even against people that have inflicted unimaginable trauma on you, only hurts you.
- zoba 6y ago
  Yes you are correct. Thankfully, as mentioned, I have mostly moved on from this. This appears to be his first post on HN, so, I felt compelled to comment to make him aware that his presence in forums, etc can be upsetting to people. And, while I don't think he should necessarily retreat from forums... I just hope that he is conscious of how his presence and words may affect people.
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  > while your anger is completely justified, you have to let it go, or it will destroy you Cheers to you for this. I know I would not be able to do the same.
- xwdv 6y ago
  I really don't get how someone can casually screw someone out of such vast sums of money and not live in fear watching their back the rest of their life. They must really be confident the individual would remain mentally stable. Not everyone will just walk away quietly and meditate, some people will definitely try to find the best way to put a bullet in your head. If you're going to screw someone, you should at least come up with some cover story that shifts the blame away from you, and even then you better hope the truth isn't discovered.
  - downandout 6y ago
    I was very angry at first, but yes, he knew that I was not the type of person that would put a bullet in his head. He didn’t do anything to shift blame - he couldn’t. My name was all over the patents the company held, so he couldn’t deny my participation. He simply stopped talking to me and then used his lawyers to attempt to silence me. Unfortunately, karma just is not a thing. Among more than a dozen homes he owns are two mansions in California, each over 10k sq ft (at least one of which was paid for with my money), within about 10 minutes of each other. One is on a bluff overlooking the ocean, and the other is more inland where he rides horses with his wife, who is roughly half his age and who was married to someone else until it became obvious to her then-husband that she was pregnant with my business partner’s child. Ironically, among his other business ventures today is a Christian magazine/movie production company. I will never see justice served upon him. He will continue to live a fabulous life and I, quite likely, won’t. But being angry over it does nothing for me.
seneca 6y ago
> I assume you must have concerns for your own physical safety. > I hope that you'll consider those of us who are still hurt by your negligence by choosing your words and presence carefully. This is a clumsy threat and isn't really appropriate.
- zoba 6y ago
  No threat intended. In my third paragraph I attempted to empathize with him. Yes, he cost me money but he is still human. I truly do think it must be scary for him. I don't know of your involvement in Bitcoin at the time, but there was a much higher percentage of 'not good people' involved then. In the months after the Gox news originally broke, many people were discussing Mark's safety. I still wonder about his safety every time there is a major milestone in the Gox case - and will again when the case finally settles. In my final paragraph I communicated that Mark's presence here, and the way he communicates will affect members of this community - especially important since this seems to be his first post here.
MagicalTux 6y ago
I am sorry for the situation and the way things and have expressed sorrow continuously, starting with the bankruptcy press conference, and on multiple occasions. I have been helping people who contacted me or who posted on reddit, been in touch with MtGoxLegal and other creditor groups, and generally tried to keep everyone aware of their rights and needed procedures to be into the bankruptcy. I also have made sure third parties wouldn't enter the process in order to benefit from it (see Brock Pierce for example) and still continue today to offer help on reddit to those in need. I do not think me being involved in a new exchange would help make money for creditors. I have provided counseling to other exchanges who asked me to on how to avoid repeating what happened with MtGox and tried to push as much as possible for MtGox creditors to get as much as possible. When I was due to receive over a billion dollar as share holder in the bankruptcy I also made sure everyone knew about it because switching back to a civil rehabilitation needed the support for most creditors and wasn't something I could do (since I'm not a creditor myself). But of course if I can help in something more I'd be happy to. You will likely receive more than you initially deposited into MtGox through the bankruptcy, but I do not know what you call "significant recompense." Also most creditors I have been interacting with have been thankful for the help and I do not think that many people still direct much ill toward me, at least it doesn't feel that way anymore, but that may have to do with the lack of death threats and insults on Twitter and such. I'm hoping everyone will be eventually able to move on, but first the bankruptcy must end, and CoinLab is preventing exactly that from happening. I have been choosing my words carefully, even going as far as avoiding voicing my own opinion here and instead linking to some fact checking from another MtGox creditor. I will however still say that CoinLab and more specifically Peter is clearly abusing his position and using stalling techniques to force MtGox and creditors to accept a settlement rather than having the whole process taking many more years, effectively taking everyone hostage for his own gain. Staying silent will not do anything for creditors, and CoinLab clearly do not have creditors' benefit in mind. I do think this is important to point out.
- rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
  As a counterpoint, I would like to thank you Mark for what you built, and the movement you started. You did change my life and the lives of many others, enabling us to build the future. Lessons were learned by many. NYKNYC. We cannot change the past, and we must build for the future. I think when the dust settles, you will be remembered as a pioneer and economy builder.
shawnz 6y ago
> occasionally I multiply my Mt Gox holdings by the current price of Bitcoin and imagine how life could be. While this obviously doesn't justify what happened with Mt Gox, there was plenty of time afterward to reinvest at significantly lower prices than today, so I don't think it's fair to attribute all those losses to him.
colechristensen 6y ago
MtGOX was one of a few situations which would have led me to having a million in the bank if not for seemingly small changes. Alas, it didn’t happen, and honestly there were many other ways that it would have otherwise not happened. Sure its fun to multiply tens of bitcoins I once owned by the all time high, but this is about as effective as thinking about picking different lottery numbers. It would be nice if I got every coin back from mtgox, my balance would sell for something between a nice car and a nice house these days, but this is reality, reality has risks, and I made risky choices and got the results which I did.
axiosgunnar 6y ago
> occasionally I multiply my Mt Gox holdings by the current price of Bitcoin and imagine how life could be I often have flashbacks to that one tweet I saw many many years ago saying „Bitcoin reaches USD parity“. I was considering investing a thousand bucks at that time, just for fun. I would be 37 million dollars rich today! Who am I kidding. What would have actually happened is I would have sold everything once my money doubled to 2 USD/BTC, and then panicked seeing it rise and rise, bought in again right before a crash and sold everything with a huge loss. So realistically, you should take what the Bitcoins you lost were worth at that time, and multiply it 2-3 times if you‘re lucky, and that‘s it. Most of the stories of people getting rich with bitcoin are: - people invested in the ecosystem, eg creators of exchanges etc - true believers (rare) - celebrities like the Winklevosses who actively invested large amounts of money with some kind of plan - people who forgot a harddrive from 2010 with 100 bitcoins and found it again in 2018. (or like MtGox, where they were stuck in liquidation for so long that the assets are worth billions now) If you‘re not in one of those groups, I think you realistically do not need to worry about having lost anything more than a few single digit multiples of your Bitcoins worth in dollars back then.
- dzhiurgis 6y ago
  Cryptopia was hacked a year or two ago. I had a diversified portfolio if shitcoins, but no idea which. They starting the legal process soon so I might be millionaire soon
  - acct776 6y ago
    Dogecoin is fucking killing it...don't ask me or my discarded hard drive during a health crisis how I know.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
soulofmischief 6y ago
The writing was on the wall months before the attack. Mt Gox's usability plummeted and rumors or pentesting circulated. Orders started experiencing increasing latency. I watched that tower fall from a safe distance. I'm not saying it's your fault that you got dragged into the Bitcoin double spend attack, but it's simply part of the game. Easy come, easy go. Don't get caught up imagining fake money you never had. It will weight heavily on your psyche forever.
globular-toast 6y ago
Get over it. You were the one who tried to get rich and failed. Just accept that and move on. Try again if you want to. But don't blame someone else for your risky investments.
ThreeFinger 6y ago
It’s not Marks foul. You have the money transferred to an exchange to mage a transaction not to hold it and wait for >40k. You would sold at 200,1000,10000.....

by zoba 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dfhjklk 6y ago

This is a very thinly veiled threat.

downandout 6y ago

I originally started my HN account to ask what I should do when my cofounder screwed me out of $12.8 million I was owed as the result of the sale of our company that he forced me out of and sold without telling me. My username came from that era of my life. I cannot even begin to describe how different my life would be had my cofounder not done this. It is unlikely that I will ever again create something that valuable, and accordingly I have a profound sense of loss over it. So speaking from personal experience...while your anger is completely justified, you have to let it go, or it will destroy you. It’s just one of those things - a random, traumatic event that instantly and irrevocably changes the trajectory of your life, that you can do nothing about. These are jarring reminders that the world is a cold and unfair place, that the universe is not in fact looking out for us, and that people are not “mostly good” as many of us were raised to believe. But holding grudges, even against people that have inflicted unimaginable trauma on you, only hurts you.

zoba 6y ago
Yes you are correct. Thankfully, as mentioned, I have mostly moved on from this. This appears to be his first post on HN, so, I felt compelled to comment to make him aware that his presence in forums, etc can be upsetting to people. And, while I don't think he should necessarily retreat from forums... I just hope that he is conscious of how his presence and words may affect people.
Judgmentality 6y ago
> while your anger is completely justified, you have to let it go, or it will destroy you Cheers to you for this. I know I would not be able to do the same.
xwdv 6y ago
I really don't get how someone can casually screw someone out of such vast sums of money and not live in fear watching their back the rest of their life. They must really be confident the individual would remain mentally stable. Not everyone will just walk away quietly and meditate, some people will definitely try to find the best way to put a bullet in your head. If you're going to screw someone, you should at least come up with some cover story that shifts the blame away from you, and even then you better hope the truth isn't discovered.
- downandout 6y ago
  I was very angry at first, but yes, he knew that I was not the type of person that would put a bullet in his head. He didn’t do anything to shift blame - he couldn’t. My name was all over the patents the company held, so he couldn’t deny my participation. He simply stopped talking to me and then used his lawyers to attempt to silence me. Unfortunately, karma just is not a thing. Among more than a dozen homes he owns are two mansions in California, each over 10k sq ft (at least one of which was paid for with my money), within about 10 minutes of each other. One is on a bluff overlooking the ocean, and the other is more inland where he rides horses with his wife, who is roughly half his age and who was married to someone else until it became obvious to her then-husband that she was pregnant with my business partner’s child. Ironically, among his other business ventures today is a Christian magazine/movie production company. I will never see justice served upon him. He will continue to live a fabulous life and I, quite likely, won’t. But being angry over it does nothing for me.

seneca 6y ago

> I assume you must have concerns for your own physical safety. > I hope that you'll consider those of us who are still hurt by your negligence by choosing your words and presence carefully. This is a clumsy threat and isn't really appropriate.

zoba 6y ago
No threat intended. In my third paragraph I attempted to empathize with him. Yes, he cost me money but he is still human. I truly do think it must be scary for him. I don't know of your involvement in Bitcoin at the time, but there was a much higher percentage of 'not good people' involved then. In the months after the Gox news originally broke, many people were discussing Mark's safety. I still wonder about his safety every time there is a major milestone in the Gox case - and will again when the case finally settles. In my final paragraph I communicated that Mark's presence here, and the way he communicates will affect members of this community - especially important since this seems to be his first post here.

MagicalTux 6y ago

I am sorry for the situation and the way things and have expressed sorrow continuously, starting with the bankruptcy press conference, and on multiple occasions. I have been helping people who contacted me or who posted on reddit, been in touch with MtGoxLegal and other creditor groups, and generally tried to keep everyone aware of their rights and needed procedures to be into the bankruptcy. I also have made sure third parties wouldn't enter the process in order to benefit from it (see Brock Pierce for example) and still continue today to offer help on reddit to those in need. I do not think me being involved in a new exchange would help make money for creditors. I have provided counseling to other exchanges who asked me to on how to avoid repeating what happened with MtGox and tried to push as much as possible for MtGox creditors to get as much as possible. When I was due to receive over a billion dollar as share holder in the bankruptcy I also made sure everyone knew about it because switching back to a civil rehabilitation needed the support for most creditors and wasn't something I could do (since I'm not a creditor myself). But of course if I can help in something more I'd be happy to. You will likely receive more than you initially deposited into MtGox through the bankruptcy, but I do not know what you call "significant recompense." Also most creditors I have been interacting with have been thankful for the help and I do not think that many people still direct much ill toward me, at least it doesn't feel that way anymore, but that may have to do with the lack of death threats and insults on Twitter and such. I'm hoping everyone will be eventually able to move on, but first the bankruptcy must end, and CoinLab is preventing exactly that from happening. I have been choosing my words carefully, even going as far as avoiding voicing my own opinion here and instead linking to some fact checking from another MtGox creditor. I will however still say that CoinLab and more specifically Peter is clearly abusing his position and using stalling techniques to force MtGox and creditors to accept a settlement rather than having the whole process taking many more years, effectively taking everyone hostage for his own gain. Staying silent will not do anything for creditors, and CoinLab clearly do not have creditors' benefit in mind. I do think this is important to point out.

rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
As a counterpoint, I would like to thank you Mark for what you built, and the movement you started. You did change my life and the lives of many others, enabling us to build the future. Lessons were learned by many. NYKNYC. We cannot change the past, and we must build for the future. I think when the dust settles, you will be remembered as a pioneer and economy builder.

shawnz 6y ago

> occasionally I multiply my Mt Gox holdings by the current price of Bitcoin and imagine how life could be. While this obviously doesn't justify what happened with Mt Gox, there was plenty of time afterward to reinvest at significantly lower prices than today, so I don't think it's fair to attribute all those losses to him.

colechristensen 6y ago

MtGOX was one of a few situations which would have led me to having a million in the bank if not for seemingly small changes. Alas, it didn’t happen, and honestly there were many other ways that it would have otherwise not happened. Sure its fun to multiply tens of bitcoins I once owned by the all time high, but this is about as effective as thinking about picking different lottery numbers. It would be nice if I got every coin back from mtgox, my balance would sell for something between a nice car and a nice house these days, but this is reality, reality has risks, and I made risky choices and got the results which I did.

axiosgunnar 6y ago

> occasionally I multiply my Mt Gox holdings by the current price of Bitcoin and imagine how life could be I often have flashbacks to that one tweet I saw many many years ago saying „Bitcoin reaches USD parity“. I was considering investing a thousand bucks at that time, just for fun. I would be 37 million dollars rich today! Who am I kidding. What would have actually happened is I would have sold everything once my money doubled to 2 USD/BTC, and then panicked seeing it rise and rise, bought in again right before a crash and sold everything with a huge loss. So realistically, you should take what the Bitcoins you lost were worth at that time, and multiply it 2-3 times if you‘re lucky, and that‘s it. Most of the stories of people getting rich with bitcoin are: - people invested in the ecosystem, eg creators of exchanges etc - true believers (rare) - celebrities like the Winklevosses who actively invested large amounts of money with some kind of plan - people who forgot a harddrive from 2010 with 100 bitcoins and found it again in 2018. (or like MtGox, where they were stuck in liquidation for so long that the assets are worth billions now) If you‘re not in one of those groups, I think you realistically do not need to worry about having lost anything more than a few single digit multiples of your Bitcoins worth in dollars back then.

dzhiurgis 6y ago
Cryptopia was hacked a year or two ago. I had a diversified portfolio if shitcoins, but no idea which. They starting the legal process soon so I might be millionaire soon
- acct776 6y ago
  Dogecoin is fucking killing it...don't ask me or my discarded hard drive during a health crisis how I know.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

soulofmischief 6y ago

The writing was on the wall months before the attack. Mt Gox's usability plummeted and rumors or pentesting circulated. Orders started experiencing increasing latency. I watched that tower fall from a safe distance. I'm not saying it's your fault that you got dragged into the Bitcoin double spend attack, but it's simply part of the game. Easy come, easy go. Don't get caught up imagining fake money you never had. It will weight heavily on your psyche forever.

globular-toast 6y ago

Get over it. You were the one who tried to get rich and failed. Just accept that and move on. Try again if you want to. But don't blame someone else for your risky investments.

ThreeFinger 6y ago

It’s not Marks foul. You have the money transferred to an exchange to mage a transaction not to hold it and wait for >40k. You would sold at 200,1000,10000.....