Things are starting to escalate in terms of upset bitcoin holders, who can't get their bitcoins from Mt. Gox. Coin Desk reports:
Kolin Burges was a software developer in London until the end of last year, when his vast Litecoin holdings suddenly went lunar. Concerned at the prospect of a Chinese New Year crash he moved much of his wealth back to Japan and Mt. Gox, only to find it locked in there around the same week.
Inspired by last week’s three-day sit-in protest by Australia’s pseudonymous CoinSearcher, Burges bought a last-minute ticket (at the cost of £850) and flew 12 hours from London to Tokyo to see for himself what was happening. He said:
“They haven’t answered anybody’s support requests, they seem to have just taken people’s money – they’ve taken my money.”
After arriving in Japan on Wednesday, Bruges tried to schedule an appointment with the company’s executives, but to no avail. On Friday morning he set up camp outside the Mt. Gox offices in Tokyo’s Shibuya district – despite the freezing temperatures.
At 9.15am he confronted Mt. Gox’s CEO Mark Karpeles outside the exchange’s front door and demanded to withdraw his coins, but the response was: “We can’t right now.” Burges’ next question: “Do you still have everyone’s bitcoins?” didn’t get a response.
(ht Jaison De Montalegre)
Yes, MtGox prices are a 33% discount to the more accurate bitcoin price at BitStamp.net.
ReplyDeleteLOL The Mt Gox price sure is the accurate price for people with bitcoins at Mt. Gox.
Delete@ Jack Weil February 14, 2014 at 2:45 PM
DeleteTrue, I'll give you that. It pays to do research before investing. Those who do will know to stay away from MtGox.
It is hard to understand how mtgox could actually lose money. On paper it is a straightforward business, there isn't any speculative risk on behalf of mtgox itself, they are just an intermediary for exchange.
ReplyDeleteThat said if Robert Wenzel is right about mtgox not being able to cover the seizure of monies taken by the feds then they might be running a ponzi scheme. They may have even used some coins to speculate, and taken the bet the wrong way.