The Horrific Losses Suffered By Mt Gox Bitcoin Investors

Bitcoin fanboys will now tell you that what happened to Mt Gox account holders is just the growing pains of Bitcoin. What they don't focus on is the fact that many, many of the Mt Gox account holders were naive, amateur investors, who bought the Bitcoin hype and invested far more than they should have in such a risky early stage (in my mind, dubious) investment.

Hypsters never warn you about the dangers. It's irresponsible to talk about an investment going to the moon, without proper risk warnings. Business Insider has assembled (via Adrianne Jeffries) some of the comments  from a thread on a Bitcoin forum posted to Reddit 

These are from right before Mt Gox filed bankruptcy :

-- I am in Japan and have deposited 12.499 million Yen (about USD 122,000) at MtGox from October to December 2013. I currently have 175 BTCs and 13,000 Yen in cash at their exchange. I also have a Premium status account. Please let me know how to proceed. That was most of my retirement money.
-- My name is xxx and I live in Sweden, Malmö. I am writing for me and for my girlfriend and my dad. We all bought and sold bitcoins a last years and made some money. We have taken out some money when we need to and right now me and my girlfriend was going to buy a house and start a family so we tried to withdraw the money in January. Since the money didn't show up after 4 weeks I tried to contact them but still nothing. I hope that together with you and some others get at least some money back. If you need any proof of the withdrawals or such I can provide some of it. We had in total $49000 on the accounts.
--  have about 90 BTC and no USD in my mtgox account, which I would very much like to receive back at some point. It's only just sinking in that it might all be gone.. I can't believe I waited so long before getting it out somewhere safe, but.. here we are.
-- Hey there, I am interested in being a plaintiff as well. I had about 70k in Mtgox in Dec due to the price explosion in November and attempted to withdraw some funds since I wasn't comfortable having that amount hosted there.  I ran into the withdrawal issue back in Dec and opened a support ticket in which I got the run around until they finally officially announced what the problem was.  As the moment, I don't have any $$ in Mtgox but around 180 BTC.  My stomach has been in knots all week :-(
-- Hi, My name is xxxxxx and I am from California (if that matters).  I have about 650 BTC in Gox.  I haven't slept in days and haven't been able to tell my wife how much I've lost.  I was an early adopter, just mining in my basement, and I can't imagine all of my time and work vanishing like this.  Please contact me with what I need to do
-- I am a French citizen.  I would like to know how to try and join you in reclaiming my lost funds.  I had almost 100.000 EUR in my account.  It will be a complete disaster for me if it is stolen.
-- I cannot reasonably afford to lose the funds I have at Mtgox. I currently hold the majority in USD, but also significant amounts of EUR and BTC.
-- I'm a student and this is almost all of my money I have left (I actually have a lot of debt, which I intended to pay back with that money). I'm really panicking right now and not sure what to do!!!
-- I'm in Tokyo as well and I lost ~8 BTC and 500,000 in JPY. Please let me know how your case progresses and whether at any time you think it would be possible to get others involved. I really hope I can get at least some of that money back. I need it.
-- Hey, I'd like to get involved in this as well. Gox has yet to deliver a withdrawal of funds from late last year and currently has all my coins locked up because of their withdrawal lock. Email is below, let me know if you need any other info. Thanks
-- (originally I tried to withdraw $30,000.00, but Mt.Gox cancelled my withdraw and asked me to change to GBP. Funds never arrived--> Mt.Gox confirmed they were unable to wire funds, but funds are not re-instated to my account. Mt.Gox admits in the e-mail funds are mine.)
-- I found your post just today after the Gox closed the site. I had 10,200 USD with them, which I traded just last week for gox coin. I initially deposited USD from bank account on November 2013, and traded on Gox just about 2 weeks ago, not knowing there was a trouble to withdraw any BTC from them. I do have screen shots from last week from trading and all my history since November 2013. My initial deposits in November have been 8000 USD and 2200 USD, so whatever trading I did in last weeks was for vain since gox did not let any BTC out of the site. Current standing on my account is about 27 BTC and around 2200 USD but since gox coin was never a real BTC, as I just learnt recently, I consider Gox owing me 10200 USD which I initially deposited.
-- I wish to be include in the class action lawsuit, I an non-us (EU) and have lost 50 BTC and 24,600€.
-- I would like to join the lawsuit if there is any chance of getting the either the BTC or EURO-equivalent at the price determined at the time of judgement.
I would be thankful for any news / suggestions / ideas.
Thank you very much
-- I want to participate. I have 85 BTC on Mt Gox.
-- Please update me and let me know, which further steps I have to take to participate.
-- I had $28500 in, and purchased 50btc @ $570.  So now I have the 49.7btc still in and no fiat.  Have been waiting for withdrawal to resume to clean myself of gox forever.
-- I was very lucky, having pulled out the bulk of my btc holdings from gox in mid-January.
-- Please respond if whether I can or can't participate.
-- I have 37 BTCs and wnt to be part of your lawsuit. Please send me more details.
-- i too am a Gox victim.  I have 69 BTC stuck on Gox. At this stage i would be very reluctant to take such a haircut and convert to USD.
-- I have roughly $100K in my account, so it might be worth it for the lawyer to squeeze me in.
-- I have 50BTC in MTGOX and would be interested in joining. If yes, how large would the fees be?
-- If Mtgox is indeed gone and finished, I would like to know what the status of this suit is and who I can contact regarding it. I had about 111.777 BTC on gox.
-- I have 158 btc on MtGox and would like to take part to your lawsuit.
-- Most of our holdings were in bitcoin, and at market rates on other exchanges, I had over $40,000 while my friends had $300,000 to 400,000.
-- I have 154 BTC and 0 USD in MTGOX.
-- I live in Malta but would like to know what my options are for joining your case?
-- Hey. Mt. Gox has owed me roughly 1,800 USD for more than 6 months. Two transactions. One they're claiming technical difficulties to Dwolla which never went through, and one they just never sent to my bank.

It is simply irresponsible to urge massive accumulations of Bitcoin or any risky investments without proper warnings. Although I have never been a big fan of Bitcoin I did see it as having the potential for huge gains in the short-term. In the EPJ Daily Alert, I advised risk oriented investors to put 1% of their assets into Bitcoin. You always have to balance risk against reward. A 1% investment would have increased an entire portfolio by more than 2.5 times on a 1% investment, at Bitcoins peak, with exposure limited to only 1% of the portfolio.

Here is what I wrote in the ALERT on November 25, 2013:

BITCOIN

Some time earlier this year, I made a recommendation, when Bitcoin was around $40, for risk oriented traders to buy into Bitcoin. I did at that time, and continue now, to view Bitcoin to have many of the characteristics of a pump and dump scheme. It will collapse in price at some point. That said the supply and demand dynamics of Bitcoin suggest that there is much more upside.[...]

To repeat, I consider Bitcoin to be a very risky investment that will ultimately collapse. However, as long as new investors enter the chase, the price will continue to climb. This is no place for conservative investors, but for risk tolerant traders, there is a opportunity to catch more of the upside.