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It is real - this is an internal strategy doc shared between the exchanges and other Bitcoin people with MtGox and it was never supposed to be public. Something

by nikcub 13y ago

It is real - this is an internal strategy doc shared between the exchanges and other Bitcoin people with MtGox and it was never supposed to be public. Something has gone wrong with the plan. Here is what i've worked out so far what has happen. MtGox worked out a while ago that they were insolvent, so they reached out to prominent members of the Bitcoin community to help them out. The plan was instead of just having MtGox make a statement saying 'we are insolvent, no more money' they would team up with the other exchanges and come up with a plan where they could wrap that news around some 'good' news. This document is the draft of that plan as it was being worked on by the exchanges and MtGox. The 'good' news parts would be: 1. MtGox customers would be transferred to a new entity Gox 2. Karpeles wouldn't be involved 3. The new exchange would have old 'owed' figures from MtGox 4. The other exchanges would attempt to partially bail out the MtGox holders edit: point 4.5. the Mt Gox closing statement would shift blame away from Bitcoin - which is important. MtGox has spent the last 3 months blaming on a 'bitcoin bug' what was a failure of their own accounting and auditing system. A lot of media bought up the 'bitcoin bug' story. 5. The other exchanges and Gox would announce all this at the same time on Tue 25th Feb 6. For some reason the exchanges did their part but Gox didn't do their part 7. Someone from the exchanges leaked this internal strategy doc that was written between MtGox and the exchanges to show what should have happen today but didn't since MtGox bailed out on their part of it. We are now stuck in a situation where part of this internal plan has been implemented (the exchanges, gox.com being registered) but the majority of it has not. edit: most interesting q's for me atm are: why did MtGox reneg on this plan (or have they?), when did MtGox finally reach out for help? and how long have these insiders known that MtGox is in trouble - there was a huge sell spike in MtGox coins days ago. edit 2: note that outside of verifying this doc with somebody who works at one of the companies, since this doc was leaked and published the following has happen, as outlined in the doc: * the other markets released their joint statement * the gox.com domain was registered/activated * trading halted edit 3: you may have noticed slide 8 of the presentation is censored, i've managed to remove the black bars. It is details of MtGox's financials, image here: http://i.imgur.com/Rb5MIcg.png http://i.imgur.com/Rb5MIcg.png Google Doc version here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1miioFP1oFnLa8OQ1MZ91ABUDfLKY8X9KDGwz8Izjaa0/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1miioFP1oFnLa8OQ1MZ91ABUD...

hrrsn 13y ago
This is the most likely explanation that I've heard so far and lines up with their Twitter account being emptied, gox.com being transferred, the statement from the other exchanges etc. Completely rebuilding an entire exchange from the ground up in 1 month seems insane. I would not like to be in that office right now.
- danielweber 13y ago
  How in the world do you keep people on staff through this? Maybe they individually own a lot of Bitcoins and are thus, indirectly, big equity holders.
gojomo 13y ago
But major aspects of this plan are delusional. Take p. 7, "To reduce liabilities": "Coins for equity,…" You can't just improvise a private-offering of shares for Bitcoin in the envisioned timeframe. The other exchanges know this. The kind of people with the deep pockets and credibility to consider a reboot/turnaround would know this. "…coin donations,…" Who's going to donate to a distrusted brand with large, poorly-understood multi-jurisdictional legal problems, which also starts out 633K BTC ($280 million, at $450/BTC) and $33 million USD in debt? "…and cash injections to buy coins at the cheap MtGox price are some options among many." THERE ARE NO COINS TO SELL AT THE CHEAP MT GOX PRICE, if the rest of the document is to be believed. Even if they launched this plan and kept that fact secret – against the other implied steps of bringing in credible new expert team members – there's no net-improvement in the entities' position if it keeps selling BTC (adding BTC-denominated debt to its balance sheet) at a lower price it would take to acquire BTC elsewhere. That's not even competent as fraud: you'd want to buy at the artificially-low price, not sell. It's nonsense on its face, even according to its own terms. I can believe this is a parody of some industry bailout idea that was floated… but recrafted to poke fun at it. (The proposed April 1 relaunch and reasoning evocative of "too big to fail" bailouts are more hints.) For this to have been a legitimate outline of a believed-possible plan, everyone involved in its authorship would have to be high on their leftover Silk Road stashes.
- waterlesscloud 13y ago

by nikcub 13y ago

hrrsn 13y ago

This is the most likely explanation that I've heard so far and lines up with their Twitter account being emptied, gox.com being transferred, the statement from the other exchanges etc. Completely rebuilding an entire exchange from the ground up in 1 month seems insane. I would not like to be in that office right now.

danielweber 13y ago
How in the world do you keep people on staff through this? Maybe they individually own a lot of Bitcoins and are thus, indirectly, big equity holders.

gojomo 13y ago

But major aspects of this plan are delusional. Take p. 7, "To reduce liabilities": "Coins for equity,…" You can't just improvise a private-offering of shares for Bitcoin in the envisioned timeframe. The other exchanges know this. The kind of people with the deep pockets and credibility to consider a reboot/turnaround would know this. "…coin donations,…" Who's going to donate to a distrusted brand with large, poorly-understood multi-jurisdictional legal problems, which also starts out 633K BTC ($280 million, at $450/BTC) and $33 million USD in debt? "…and cash injections to buy coins at the cheap MtGox price are some options among many." THERE ARE NO COINS TO SELL AT THE CHEAP MT GOX PRICE, if the rest of the document is to be believed. Even if they launched this plan and kept that fact secret – against the other implied steps of bringing in credible new expert team members – there's no net-improvement in the entities' position if it keeps selling BTC (adding BTC-denominated debt to its balance sheet) at a lower price it would take to acquire BTC elsewhere. That's not even competent as fraud: you'd want to buy at the artificially-low price, not sell. It's nonsense on its face, even according to its own terms. I can believe this is a parody of some industry bailout idea that was floated… but recrafted to poke fun at it. (The proposed April 1 relaunch and reasoning evocative of "too big to fail" bailouts are more hints.) For this to have been a legitimate outline of a believed-possible plan, everyone involved in its authorship would have to be high on their leftover Silk Road stashes.

waterlesscloud 13y ago