4 ms·

They don't have 60% of their customers' bitcoins. They (allegedly) have 0.2% (2k out of 750k) of their customers' bitcoins, and 60% of their USD/EUR/JPY.

bowmessage 13y ago
Ah, I didn't realize the units on their assets v liabilities reporting weren't bitcoins. Damn, thanks for pointing that out.
Aqueous 13y ago
I really do not understand how the transaction malleability bug could have lost 40% of their fiat deposits. Certainly they are not telling the truth about the transaction malleability. They have now dug their feet in on that explanation but it does not make sense given what we know about transaction malleability (the kind they are talking could not possibly have cause 850,000 bitcoins to disappear from allegedly cold storage without them noticing, and probably not without some social engineering.) It seems likely that if the bug was involved somehow, it was because an intruder performed an attack from inside Gox . How else would they also be able to get fiat deposits out of Mt. Gox? Wouldnt that require initiating bank transfers?
- nwh 13y ago
  It's basically impossible. There's 200BTC a day withdraw limits (or rather, was), for this to have worked somebody would have needed to be withdrawing the limit from 5 different accounts, every day for the last 3 years and successfully manipulating the bug in Gox's system every single time. This couldn't even have worked reliably, as the consistent Gox bug was only triggered by 0.8.0 being released. It doesn't make sense as an explanation, especially given that we now know that some Russian clowns also had database access.
  - nullc 13y ago
    > There's 200BTC a day withdraw limits If you had a verified account you could ask for any limit you wanted up to 10k BTC, with a trusted account I think there was no maximum— I've talked to people who say they had 50k limits. There was a 200 BTC maximum per withdraw however, at least in recent times. > as the consistent Gox bug was only triggered by 0.8.0 being released Even that wasn't consistent, only ~1% of signatures were invalid DER encodings with their code.
    - nwh 13y ago
      > If you had a verified account you could ask for any limit you wanted up to 10k BTC, with a trusted account I think there was no maximum— I've talked to people who say they had 50k limits. Wsn't aware of that, I only ever saw 200BTC being mentioned. Did Mt Gox seriously keep 10,000BTC+ in their hot wallet for this to work, or were manual withdraws like a bank where you make a cash request for the next day?
    - jlgaddis 13y ago
      > I've talked to people who say they had 50k limits. That's certainly believable. My limit was 10k, IIRC, and I haven't used Mt. Gox since 2011.
  - stock_toaster 13y ago
    > It doesn't make sense as an explanation, especially given that we now know that some Russian clowns also had database access Big Red Shoes, Inc.? ClownCarDB?
    - nwh 13y ago
      A group of hackers that compromised Gox to find out "what went wrong" and compromised tens of thousands of people's passports and home addresses at the same times. Leaked the personal contacts and names of all the Gox employees, and generally put many people's lives genuinely at risk. Clowns.
- choult 13y ago
  > I really do not understand how the transaction malleability bug could have lost 40% of their fiat deposits. At what point, given normal business conditions, would you need to hold 100% of deposits? You only need enough to cover withdrawals; ignoring the MtGox issues 60% seems quite reasonable. The only time you'd need to worry about 100% is if you're anticipating a total run on deposits or you're going to close the bank.
  - jordanthoms 13y ago
    Mt Gox wasn't (at least not openly) a fractional reserve bank - they need to have 100% of the customer funds on hand at all times.
  - commandar 13y ago
    >At what point, given normal business conditions, would you need to hold 100% of deposits? At the point where you're not a lending bank, which Gox is not. They shouldn't have been running a fractional reserve at all.

bowmessage 13y ago

Ah, I didn't realize the units on their assets v liabilities reporting weren't bitcoins. Damn, thanks for pointing that out.

Aqueous 13y ago

I really do not understand how the transaction malleability bug could have lost 40% of their fiat deposits. Certainly they are not telling the truth about the transaction malleability. They have now dug their feet in on that explanation but it does not make sense given what we know about transaction malleability (the kind they are talking could not possibly have cause 850,000 bitcoins to disappear from allegedly cold storage without them noticing, and probably not without some social engineering.) It seems likely that if the bug was involved somehow, it was because an intruder performed an attack from inside Gox . How else would they also be able to get fiat deposits out of Mt. Gox? Wouldnt that require initiating bank transfers?

nwh 13y ago
It's basically impossible. There's 200BTC a day withdraw limits (or rather, was), for this to have worked somebody would have needed to be withdrawing the limit from 5 different accounts, every day for the last 3 years and successfully manipulating the bug in Gox's system every single time. This couldn't even have worked reliably, as the consistent Gox bug was only triggered by 0.8.0 being released. It doesn't make sense as an explanation, especially given that we now know that some Russian clowns also had database access.
- nullc 13y ago
  > There's 200BTC a day withdraw limits If you had a verified account you could ask for any limit you wanted up to 10k BTC, with a trusted account I think there was no maximum— I've talked to people who say they had 50k limits. There was a 200 BTC maximum per withdraw however, at least in recent times. > as the consistent Gox bug was only triggered by 0.8.0 being released Even that wasn't consistent, only ~1% of signatures were invalid DER encodings with their code.
  - nwh 13y ago
    > If you had a verified account you could ask for any limit you wanted up to 10k BTC, with a trusted account I think there was no maximum— I've talked to people who say they had 50k limits. Wsn't aware of that, I only ever saw 200BTC being mentioned. Did Mt Gox seriously keep 10,000BTC+ in their hot wallet for this to work, or were manual withdraws like a bank where you make a cash request for the next day?
  - jlgaddis 13y ago
    > I've talked to people who say they had 50k limits. That's certainly believable. My limit was 10k, IIRC, and I haven't used Mt. Gox since 2011.
- stock_toaster 13y ago
  > It doesn't make sense as an explanation, especially given that we now know that some Russian clowns also had database access Big Red Shoes, Inc.? ClownCarDB?
  - nwh 13y ago
    A group of hackers that compromised Gox to find out "what went wrong" and compromised tens of thousands of people's passports and home addresses at the same times. Leaked the personal contacts and names of all the Gox employees, and generally put many people's lives genuinely at risk. Clowns.
choult 13y ago
> I really do not understand how the transaction malleability bug could have lost 40% of their fiat deposits. At what point, given normal business conditions, would you need to hold 100% of deposits? You only need enough to cover withdrawals; ignoring the MtGox issues 60% seems quite reasonable. The only time you'd need to worry about 100% is if you're anticipating a total run on deposits or you're going to close the bank.
- jordanthoms 13y ago
  Mt Gox wasn't (at least not openly) a fractional reserve bank - they need to have 100% of the customer funds on hand at all times.
- commandar 13y ago
  >At what point, given normal business conditions, would you need to hold 100% of deposits? At the point where you're not a lending bank, which Gox is not. They shouldn't have been running a fractional reserve at all.