I watched the video yesterday.  Yes, it is a very nice presentation. 

It's good that he avoids the exaggerated sales hype of most bitcoin enthusiasts.  However it seems he has been listening from one ear only, as he barely mentions some of the problems, or omits them altogether.  Like the impossibility of correcting mistakes or thefts. 

But, well, you can't expect an old man to properly understand such a new thing, can you? 

At one point he says that bitcoin is great because it has no rich bankers buying out government.  Is he aware of KnC buying their way into the Bitcoin Foundation, and "electing" their investor/friend Brock Pierce to the board of directors?

The 800'000 number is the sum of all BTC account balances in the leaked database.  It is basically the total BTC that clients deposited over MtGOX's history, minus all the BTC that they have withdrawn.

If indeed MtGOX never had the 600'000+ coins that it claims to have lost, we would have to conclude that the database has been doctored at some point; and in that case it is hard to say that the trades of non-existent coins by Joe and Bill were real.

However, most people seem to agree that the 800'000 figure is correct, and the 600'000+ coins were indeed lost.  But, even with this assumption, the trades by Joe and Bill were not quite real, since the theft or embezzlement must have happened at least a year ago.  The artificial 10% overprice that MyGOX maintained for a long time since then was at odds with its real situation, for example; so it is questionable whether the trading in that period is "real".

From the creditor meeting papers, I understand that Kobayashi has already transferred to an address of his own the 200'000+ coins that Mark "found". 

But, even now, no one seems to know when the other 600'000 disappeared, nor the addresses where they were transferred to.  Presumably Kobayashi and/or the police will get from Mark the legitimate MtGOX addresses that held the coins before they disappeared; but how could one prove that the addresses where they were transferred to did NOT belong to Mark (or any other suspect)?

Even if the 600'000+ coins were embezzled, rather than stolen by an external hacker, it will be hard to prove that (unless the embezzler was really incompetent at hiding his tracks.)  An embezzler could have written down the private keys on a slip of paper and handed it over to an external accomplice who issued the fatal transaction.  That leak would leave no trace in any logs, and it would be impossible to connect the embezzler to that transaction.

As many people have noted, in spite of all the talk about adoption there is still comparatively little demand for use as e-currency (and what is bought for that use is usually sold back on the exchanges very soon, since most merchants prefer to get the cash).  Therefore the price is still sustained entirely by demand from speculators and investors.

I would further claim that the price is sustained entirely by short-term speculation, and mostly in the Chinese exchanges.  I believe that the price generally fell from ~800$ to ~400$  from February to April because their interest in bitcoin was wearing out fast. The cause of that may have been the perceived hostile attitude of the PBoC, the MtGOX debacle, or ordinary clients losing money to a few high-frequency or leveraged traders.

By my reading, after the final tough stance by the government in late April or early May, the exchanges made the field more level and reassured their clients through their joint announcement.  That got the price stabilized at 450$.

In my view the late May mini-bubble was due to a surge in demand in Chine, too.  I still don't knwo what caused that demand, but anyway it seems to have all but collapsed, so the price is almost back to the pre-bubble level.

But even the 450--475$ price is still held up by the Chinese short-term speculators.  If it weren't for them, the price would be less than 350$, perhaps as low as 150$.   

If there is manipulation by a few "whales", it is to keep the price up rather than down.  I see hints of that since late May and even now.  However I don't see how that could be profitable; it seems that it would take a lot of money to just fight a natural downwards trend.  Perhaps those whales were just speculating, only with some insider knowledge that made them more optimistic than the average client.

Thanks for the tips; I've got a box full of salvaged PC boards, any other ideas for how to use them?

That "if" may be unwarranted... according to random commentaries in the net, the tax in question was a "poll" (per-capita) tax that was due whether one used Caesar's money or not.

But OK, we can save that reading for consolation in the future, when bitcoin inflation will be over and the miners will charge 4% fee on every transaction -- including when you get your pay, when you move it to cold storage, when you take it from cold storage, and when you spend it.

As for that other stuff about the camel/rope, the consensus is fergerit, right?


Do you mean that bitcoin is the True God? 

That is now assumed to be a translation error, the original words for 'rope' and 'camel' (in Aramaic?  Greek?) being very similar.

Actually the first half was about paying the taxes to the Romans.

I also seem to remember something about a rope passing through the eye of a needle...

Do they sell a purse and shoes with matching colors?

Perhaps I did not get my point across yet. 

Joe Coiner deposited 100 BTC into MtGOX when they were worth 50$ each.   Since then, he traded them with such skill that, when MtGOX collapsed, he thought that he had 1000 BTC in his account, which at the time were worth 800$ each.

Bill Bitter, on the other hand, deposited 1000 BTC at the same time as Joe, but then traded so clumsily that he belived that he had only 100 BTC left at the end.

By method X of computing claims, Joe's claim is 100x50 = 5000$, while Bill's is 1000x50 = 50'000$.   So Bill will get 10x as much as Joe from Mr. Kobayashi.

By the other method Y, Joe's claim is 1000x800 = 800'000$, and Bill's claim is 100x800 = 80'000$.  So its is Joe who will get 10x as much as Bill.

Method X was used by the US courts when processing the claims of Madoff's victims, and someone claimed that it is the standard procedure in japan too. 

So, obviously, the first thing you all need to do is find out whether Kobayashi will use method X, method Y, or some other method.

Sorry, I am not sure I understand what you mean.

The 600'000+ bitcoins that were stolen/embezzled should be considered lost, unless by some miracle the thief is identified, caught by the police, prosecuted, and persuaded to return the coins.  Kobayashi may ask the police to investigate the theft, if he has not done so; but that is not his job, and the bankruptcy proceedings will be closed well before the police investigation is complete.  If said miracle occurs and those coins are recovered, the proceedings may perhaps be reopened to distribute them; but it is no use to discuss that possibility now.

So, the best you will get back, in the foreseeable future, is 1/4 of what you have lost.

Kobayashi was appointed by the court to figure out what is left of MtGOX's assets, collect the claims by the clients, validate those claims, and distribute among them those remaining assets -- mainly 200'000+ bitcoins and a couple million dollars, that were still in possession of MtGOX and that he has now legally taken custody of.  He will obviously charge his fees for doing that non-trivial task (and for the consultants that he needs to hire), but plenty will be left over.

No one can get any of those coins without his agreement and the approval by the japanese court.   Attempts to do so would be theft and worse, so don't even think about it.

IMHO, the first thing you all should do is to find out how the claims are going to be computed; if that is not decided yet, how much freedom the Japanese law allows.  (There are principles of openness and fairness to all claimants, whether bitcoins and money can be accounted separately, etc. which may constrain the method even if the law does not determine it.)  Note, again, that your preferences are not relevant, unless Kobayashi and the court choose to consider them.  Note also that, depending on the accounting method chosen, the amount you may claim may be a million dollars, or may be zero.

If you are reasonably certain that you are entitled to a large sum, I belive that it pays to hire a Japanese lawyer, at least for basic advice.  If your expected refund is not that large, maybe you should join a group and hire a lawyer as a group.  Do not try to understand the laws without a lawyer.   Heed the old saying, "he who chooses to be his own lawyer has a fool for client and an idiot for lawyer."  Think of them as medical doctors: they may be greedy bastards, but if you need them, you have to use them.

Finally, some "legal" advice: when dealing with the law or lawyers, it helps a lot to wear a decent business suit and tie.  Not a social jacket & pants, not party-animal uniform, not a young-silicon-valley-genius t-shirt, not a I'm-camping-in-the-public-park stye outdoor clothing.  It sounds stupid, I know, but the universe is an incredibly stupid place.

How could one fail to trust a company with such a nice lounge?

NO. 

MtGOX's "theft" was about 5% of the total BTC in existence.  Tell me of a cash heist or theft that has taken 5% of all the dollars in existence at the time. 

I will be generous and even let you quote heists whose author was eventually identified and/or the cash was recovered.

What chances do you give for the MtGOX thief being one day caught, and the stolen coins being returned to their legitimate owners?

You can download price data from bitcoincharts.com, in various time steps (although for the smaller time steps you an get only a couple of days at a time).   But, las time I looked, they didn't list Huobi or OKCoin.

I downloaded from them several chunks of data about several exchanges in several epochs.  Let me know if you you are interested.

You can download Huobi's individual trade data from https://github.com/huobi/btc-trade-result-history

I read that.  Still, a nice query letter may prompt someone to pull that request from the bottom of his drawer and push it forward through the paper mill.

AFAIK there is not a queue of FOIA requests, certainly not across different agencies and branches.  I doubt that there are many requests stuck at the USMS auction offices (unless 10'000 bitcoiners all submitted a FOIA for that auction.  )

The argument that some bitcoiners use to "prove" that a new Bitcoin bubble is due "very soon now" is solely that the price in log scale seems to fit a straight line.   They claim that we do not need to look for the reasons of past bubbles, the plot alone is "proof" enough that they must occur regularly, because that is how the exponential trend has been created.  And the next bubble is overdue, they say, because the price plot is falling below that straight line.

Well, the WorldCom share price too fit a straight line in log scale, even better than bitcon's.   By the extrapolators' logic, it should not matter why WorldCom stopped following the trend.

That is why WorldCom is a totally pertinent example: it shows that the past history of the price is irrelevant for predicting the future.  One must look for the causes of that past growth, and try to figure out whether those causes will prevail in the future, and be aware that  unpredictable events (like the WorldCom managers' fraud) may spoil the trend at any moment.


Did Bitcoin?  We still have to see how useful it will be.

You seem to be confusing "bitcoin" with "distributed cryptocurrency".  Note that "the" Bitcoin is to distributed cryptocurrency as WorldCom was to long-distance communications.    Even if an innovative service turns out to be terribly useful, it does not follow that a particular entreprise that provides it will be a success.


I see many shrewd businessmen investing in different ways of getting money from people who believe in bitcoin, yes.

By the way, WoldCom's market cap was in the tens of billions at its highest.  As a long-distance communications company, you can bet that there were many companies building their businesses around its services.


How can you say that, after MtGOX and the hundreds of thefts and scams that have already occurred in Bitcoin's short history, almost all made possible -- and almost all still unsolved -- because of bitcoin's alleged "qualities"?  Bitcoin attracts and facilitates scams, theft, and embezzlement like no other payment method ever.  Indeed, these "qualities" are one of several reasons why I am quite skeptical about its longterm success.

What I mean is that we will not know when and whether they are buying or selling what.  Perhaps they will invest the first 200 M$ into bitcoin mining farms, or ASIC manufacturing, or cod liver oil...

Duh, maybe send them an extremely polite paper letter asking whether your FOIA is still being processed...

The real question is, does he know that the anagram of 'anagrams' is 'Rama nags'?

No one in particular; are you volunteering for the task?

Thanks!  So GABI will be just another mysterious source of unpredictable disturbances in the fabric of spacetime...