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Not the OP, but no, no it's not. That Gox used to be a trading site for game cards very much speaks to their being unprepared for the difficulty of being a cur

Not the OP, but no, no it's not. That Gox used to be a trading site for game cards very much speaks to their being unprepared for the difficulty of being a currency exchange. You can't honestly think a trading card site had the correct platform to just become a currency exchange and not suffer any technical debt or architectural issues from not being built as a currency exchange from the beginning.

deleted 13y ago
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benologist 13y ago
That Gox used to be something else means nothing. What matters is what it is - and that is not a trading card site. Millions of domains were something else. Many of us have pivoted from one idea to the next while salvaging what we can or what we learned. I also don't think being in over your head or having architectural issues is a crime - it's the default state for startups, especially ones trying to keep up with big growth. Putting shit on mtgox for being the quintessential bootstrapped startup, on HN, is just stupid.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  > That Gox used to be something else means nothing. I just explained why it does mean something, so we simply disagree.
  - benologist 13y ago
    If they're still using the source code from 2010 when it was a completely different business with a completely different name with a completely different purpose owned by a completely different person, according to the Wikipedia link you posted.
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      You're pretending this was just a domain name sale; that's not what the public story is, the story is that it was re-purposed by the original owner who then sold it to the current owners so there's every reason to believe it's based on the original code.
      - waterlesscloud 13y ago
        Well, every reason except that the site for trading Magic The Gathering Online cards never went live. And that trading currencies is a completely different task than trading cards.
        gnaritas 13y ago
        That it never went live is not relevant, it doesn't mean code wasn't written or re-used. So he pivoted before going live, so what?
        benologist 13y ago
        In this fantasy is the surviving code supposed to be mission critical stuff that magically applied to the completely different second business and survived the years and growth since 2011?
        gnaritas 13y ago
        > In this fantasy Fuck off then.
        benologist 13y ago
        Numerous people have posted information with sources that directly conflicts with most of your opinions, while you ride on this apparent "4+ years ago some dude maybe reused some source" for whatever that's even supposed to mean. MtGox has more traffic than HN, survived immense press and growth over the last couple years as bitcoin rose into mainstream popularity, and did so as a market leader for most of that time. That alone should tell you very little if any source remains, it's not like that dude's beta that apparently never even launched was likely to just scale through several orders of magnitude more traffic and solve every problem and new or different need along the way. Fantasy sounds like exactly the right term. Unless you have any proof. Do you?
- raganwald 13y ago
  I also don't think being in over your head or having architectural issues is a crime - it's the default state for startups, especially ones trying to keep up with big growth. While this statement is usually true, let's not generalize. There are some kinds of business or services where you are doing a disservice to the world by being in over your head. Example: If you decide to "disrupt" home construction and sidestep the various annoying and taxing construction regulations. You simply must not go around selling houses to people unless you are actually very, very confident that you are not building a dangerous product. Same thing for making food that people eat, pacemakers, radiation devices, and taking people's money to safeguard. It's not a crime to make mistakes that nobody with reasonable experience could foresee, but it is absolutely wrong to make avoidable mistakes that hurt your customers due to industry inexperience.
- dsuth 13y ago
  This is weirdly incorrect for a number of reasons. Firstly it's not simply a domain change. There's very good reason to believe that the architectural problems MTGox are facing today may be due in part to re-using not fit-for-purpose code, from the earlier revision of their product. Yes it never went live, and yes it's new people now; both of those things are irrelevant unless there was a complete code re-write at some point. On to your next point, there certainly is a problem with being in over your head if you're dealing with financial trading. Some industries are not suited to amateur attempts, period. Think of the amount of litigation MTGox are opening themselves up to, not just in terms of people who use them, but based on the wider impact to the BTC community if they really stuff things up. Not good if they can't show due dilligence beyond "LOL we're a startup, what do you expect?".
hrkristian 13y ago
It's not like the current exchanges was going to adopt Bitcoin at that time. Mt. Gox was as far as I'm concerned one of the more qualified and logical places for a large exchange to start. The whole Bitcoin network started with outsiders, it grew because of outsiders, because of hobbyists. The existing institutions saw no value in it; saw no point in it; saw a laughable attempt at creating competition with their established system. Hating on Mt. Gox for doing something risky -and taking blows for it along the way- is ridiculous, and this schadenfreude over it being in a tight spot now speaks more to your character than it does the company.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  My character, please pay attention, I've not hated on anyone.
  - hrkristian 13y ago
    Apologies. I mixed yours with other post(s) in that regard...
nwh 13y ago
At no point did Mt Gox ever run a service trading playing cards. Please stop spreading crap when you've clearly done no research into the matter yourself. They might have faults but this is not one of them. There's a page that announces that they are developing a site back in 2007, then the project was scrapped, and some years later the domain was reused. The implication by making this comment is that somehow the backend was reused and this is the cause for their current faults, which is just stupid on so many levels. https://web.archive.org/web/20070624204743/http://mtgox.com/gwt/mtgox.php https://web.archive.org/web/20070624204743/http://mtgox.com/...
- gnaritas 13y ago
  The public story says otherwise. http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/11/mtgox/ http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/11/mtgox/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt.Gox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt.Gox So I'll take facts over your random unfounded objections any day.
  - diydsp 13y ago
    > facts > wired Wired gets strung up here regularly for sensationalization. While evidential, neither of your sources can be considered _factual_. In fact, the first four references of your wikipedia article all point to... that article in Wired, which doesn't attribute its sources at all. So you've got one possible source- not the definition of a public story. Mind you, I have no stake in this matter. I don't care for Magic or Bitcoins. I'm just here as a philosopher.
  - nwh 13y ago
    That story makes no sense at all. They started developing an exchange for cards in 2007, then somehow modified the system to work with Bitcoin four years later? There's absolutely no similarity between those services. I provided a reference to archive.org for the date I mentioned, and you can verify that no such service ever existed until the domain was repurposed in 2011. It's ridiculous to even begin to think that there's any similarities between the sites outside of the domain name and it's owner.
drfuchs 13y ago
Well, Nintendo started as a playing card company, and managed to overcome the technical debt and architectural issues of becoming a globally successful video game company. And I kind of like how "Mt Gox" is alliterative with "Fort Knox". That all said, I wouldn't dream of using them.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  Do you have a point? I didn't claim Gox couldn't overcome them, I simply pointed out that such issues must exist. Your example reinforces my point.
  - drfuchs 13y ago
    It's just amusing that two companies that we're all aware of had (attempted to) take a big pivot into high-tech from the playing/trading card industry, of all places. No doubt you're correct, and the extent to which Mt Gox having figured that "hey, we're kind of running an exchange already" actually helped them is about the same as for Nintendo thinking 40 years ago "hey, we already know about the game market".
    - Retric 13y ago
      Come to think of it Nintendo probably did gain a lot by having a card gaming background. Odd as it might sound it was probably harder for a traditional software company to make the jump because bug free != fun. The idea of coming up with fun and balanced rule systems has a lot to do with play testing which is not part of the traditional software dev process. Blizzard is probably the best example where fun was required before they where willing to ship something sadly that seems to have disappeared after the merger.
      - taejo 13y ago
        > The idea of coming up with fun and balanced rule systems has a lot to do with play testing which is not part of the traditional software dev process. AFAIK, Nintendo's card-gaming business was only the production of Hanafuda and French-style decks. It didn't design any new games itself.
27182818284 13y ago
I don't know, that's pretty generic. "You can't honestly think a computer company had the correct platform to just become a a major player in the music industry and not suffer any technical debt or architectural issues..." But Apple was OK.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  Surviving technical challenges doesn't mean you didn't suffer them. Apple is an example that supports my point, not an argument against it. I didn't say Gox wouldn't survive the challenge. So you basically have no point.
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    There's also a difference between pivoting a company and starting projects from scratch and repurposing the project, which I think gnaritas believes happened here.
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      As any rational programmer would have done. The odds that this guy coded the Gox trading engine from scratch rather than reusing his existing code for trading cards is slim to none; that's just not how programmers behave.

deleted 13y ago

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benologist 13y ago

That Gox used to be something else means nothing. What matters is what it is - and that is not a trading card site. Millions of domains were something else. Many of us have pivoted from one idea to the next while salvaging what we can or what we learned. I also don't think being in over your head or having architectural issues is a crime - it's the default state for startups, especially ones trying to keep up with big growth. Putting shit on mtgox for being the quintessential bootstrapped startup, on HN, is just stupid.

gnaritas 13y ago
> That Gox used to be something else means nothing. I just explained why it does mean something, so we simply disagree.
- benologist 13y ago
  If they're still using the source code from 2010 when it was a completely different business with a completely different name with a completely different purpose owned by a completely different person, according to the Wikipedia link you posted.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    You're pretending this was just a domain name sale; that's not what the public story is, the story is that it was re-purposed by the original owner who then sold it to the current owners so there's every reason to believe it's based on the original code.
    - waterlesscloud 13y ago
      Well, every reason except that the site for trading Magic The Gathering Online cards never went live. And that trading currencies is a completely different task than trading cards.
      - gnaritas 13y ago
        That it never went live is not relevant, it doesn't mean code wasn't written or re-used. So he pivoted before going live, so what?
        benologist 13y ago
        In this fantasy is the surviving code supposed to be mission critical stuff that magically applied to the completely different second business and survived the years and growth since 2011?
        gnaritas 13y ago
        > In this fantasy Fuck off then.
        benologist 13y ago
        Numerous people have posted information with sources that directly conflicts with most of your opinions, while you ride on this apparent "4+ years ago some dude maybe reused some source" for whatever that's even supposed to mean. MtGox has more traffic than HN, survived immense press and growth over the last couple years as bitcoin rose into mainstream popularity, and did so as a market leader for most of that time. That alone should tell you very little if any source remains, it's not like that dude's beta that apparently never even launched was likely to just scale through several orders of magnitude more traffic and solve every problem and new or different need along the way. Fantasy sounds like exactly the right term. Unless you have any proof. Do you?
raganwald 13y ago
I also don't think being in over your head or having architectural issues is a crime - it's the default state for startups, especially ones trying to keep up with big growth. While this statement is usually true, let's not generalize. There are some kinds of business or services where you are doing a disservice to the world by being in over your head. Example: If you decide to "disrupt" home construction and sidestep the various annoying and taxing construction regulations. You simply must not go around selling houses to people unless you are actually very, very confident that you are not building a dangerous product. Same thing for making food that people eat, pacemakers, radiation devices, and taking people's money to safeguard. It's not a crime to make mistakes that nobody with reasonable experience could foresee, but it is absolutely wrong to make avoidable mistakes that hurt your customers due to industry inexperience.
dsuth 13y ago
This is weirdly incorrect for a number of reasons. Firstly it's not simply a domain change. There's very good reason to believe that the architectural problems MTGox are facing today may be due in part to re-using not fit-for-purpose code, from the earlier revision of their product. Yes it never went live, and yes it's new people now; both of those things are irrelevant unless there was a complete code re-write at some point. On to your next point, there certainly is a problem with being in over your head if you're dealing with financial trading. Some industries are not suited to amateur attempts, period. Think of the amount of litigation MTGox are opening themselves up to, not just in terms of people who use them, but based on the wider impact to the BTC community if they really stuff things up. Not good if they can't show due dilligence beyond "LOL we're a startup, what do you expect?".

hrkristian 13y ago

It's not like the current exchanges was going to adopt Bitcoin at that time. Mt. Gox was as far as I'm concerned one of the more qualified and logical places for a large exchange to start. The whole Bitcoin network started with outsiders, it grew because of outsiders, because of hobbyists. The existing institutions saw no value in it; saw no point in it; saw a laughable attempt at creating competition with their established system. Hating on Mt. Gox for doing something risky -and taking blows for it along the way- is ridiculous, and this schadenfreude over it being in a tight spot now speaks more to your character than it does the company.

gnaritas 13y ago
My character, please pay attention, I've not hated on anyone.
- hrkristian 13y ago
  Apologies. I mixed yours with other post(s) in that regard...

nwh 13y ago

At no point did Mt Gox ever run a service trading playing cards. Please stop spreading crap when you've clearly done no research into the matter yourself. They might have faults but this is not one of them. There's a page that announces that they are developing a site back in 2007, then the project was scrapped, and some years later the domain was reused. The implication by making this comment is that somehow the backend was reused and this is the cause for their current faults, which is just stupid on so many levels. https://web.archive.org/web/20070624204743/http://mtgox.com/gwt/mtgox.php https://web.archive.org/web/20070624204743/http://mtgox.com/...

gnaritas 13y ago
The public story says otherwise. http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/11/mtgox/ http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/11/mtgox/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt.Gox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt.Gox So I'll take facts over your random unfounded objections any day.
- diydsp 13y ago
  > facts > wired Wired gets strung up here regularly for sensationalization. While evidential, neither of your sources can be considered _factual_. In fact, the first four references of your wikipedia article all point to... that article in Wired, which doesn't attribute its sources at all. So you've got one possible source- not the definition of a public story. Mind you, I have no stake in this matter. I don't care for Magic or Bitcoins. I'm just here as a philosopher.
- nwh 13y ago
  That story makes no sense at all. They started developing an exchange for cards in 2007, then somehow modified the system to work with Bitcoin four years later? There's absolutely no similarity between those services. I provided a reference to archive.org for the date I mentioned, and you can verify that no such service ever existed until the domain was repurposed in 2011. It's ridiculous to even begin to think that there's any similarities between the sites outside of the domain name and it's owner.

drfuchs 13y ago

Well, Nintendo started as a playing card company, and managed to overcome the technical debt and architectural issues of becoming a globally successful video game company. And I kind of like how "Mt Gox" is alliterative with "Fort Knox". That all said, I wouldn't dream of using them.

gnaritas 13y ago
Do you have a point? I didn't claim Gox couldn't overcome them, I simply pointed out that such issues must exist. Your example reinforces my point.
- drfuchs 13y ago
  It's just amusing that two companies that we're all aware of had (attempted to) take a big pivot into high-tech from the playing/trading card industry, of all places. No doubt you're correct, and the extent to which Mt Gox having figured that "hey, we're kind of running an exchange already" actually helped them is about the same as for Nintendo thinking 40 years ago "hey, we already know about the game market".
  - Retric 13y ago
    Come to think of it Nintendo probably did gain a lot by having a card gaming background. Odd as it might sound it was probably harder for a traditional software company to make the jump because bug free != fun. The idea of coming up with fun and balanced rule systems has a lot to do with play testing which is not part of the traditional software dev process. Blizzard is probably the best example where fun was required before they where willing to ship something sadly that seems to have disappeared after the merger.
    - taejo 13y ago
      > The idea of coming up with fun and balanced rule systems has a lot to do with play testing which is not part of the traditional software dev process. AFAIK, Nintendo's card-gaming business was only the production of Hanafuda and French-style decks. It didn't design any new games itself.

27182818284 13y ago

I don't know, that's pretty generic. "You can't honestly think a computer company had the correct platform to just become a a major player in the music industry and not suffer any technical debt or architectural issues..." But Apple was OK.

gnaritas 13y ago
Surviving technical challenges doesn't mean you didn't suffer them. Apple is an example that supports my point, not an argument against it. I didn't say Gox wouldn't survive the challenge. So you basically have no point.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  There's also a difference between pivoting a company and starting projects from scratch and repurposing the project, which I think gnaritas believes happened here.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    As any rational programmer would have done. The odds that this guy coded the Gox trading engine from scratch rather than reusing his existing code for trading cards is slim to none; that's just not how programmers behave.