Is that so?  I thought that they had filed for "bankruptcy" and that meant liquidation.  "Reorganizaton" seems to be a distinct procedure with its own law.  That is what I understood from that booklet; am I wrong?

(Note that most of the booklet is about reorganization "because that is what most of our readers are interested in".)

Move on, move on, there are no unicorns to see here, just an ordinary malleability bug, it is all taken care of now.

Today (Friday Feb/28, 00:00--23:59 UTC) the total trade volume was 312 kBTC, rather on the low side but still more than yesterday's (259 kBTC).

The increase in volume was spread rather evenly: from 214 to 259 kBTC in China (+21%), from 45 to 53 kBTC (+17%) outside China.

However, OKCoin was responsible for most of the increase in China (84 to 12 kBTC, or +55%) while Huobi actually shrunk a bit (from 123 to 122 kBTC).   Is this the first time that OKCoin passes Huobi in volume?

Outside China, Bitstamp still leads with 23 kBTC, while BTC-e (15) and Bitfinex (13) dispute a distant second place.

Daily volumes of BTC trade to/from USD and other national currencies (in kBTC):


             !    Thu !    Fri !    Sat !    Sun !    Mon !    Tue !    Wed !    Thu !    Fri !
  EXCHANGE   !  02/20 !  02/21 !  02/22 !  02/23 !  02/24 !  02/25 !  02/26 !  02/27 !  02/28 ! Currencies considered

  Bitstamp   |  34.97 |  29.61 |  18.08 |  20.87 |  51.84 | 115.76 |  49.11 |  17.05 |  22.63 | USD
  BitFinEx   |  25.27 |  28.46 |  14.73 |  15.80 |  27.16 |  94.55 |  37.71 |  12.04 |  15.29 | USD
  BTC-e      |  23.37 |  23.64 |  18.68 |  14.24 |  20.78 |  73.86 |  33.61 |  14.60 |  12.74 | USD,EUR,RUR
  Kraken     |   1.60 |   1.15 |   1.08 |   1.06 |   1.06 |   2.23 |   1.87 |   0.89 |   1.34 | EUR
  Bitcoin.DE |   0.70 |   0.76 |   0.61 |   0.50 |   0.73 |   2.23 |   1.00 |   0.50 |   0.70 | EUR
  CaVirtEx   |   0.75 |   0.60 |   0.20 |   0.23 |   0.30 |   2.15 |   0.32 |   0.31 |   0.33 | CAD
  CampBX     |   0.73 |   0.24 |   0.26 |   0.22 |   0.37 |   0.42 |   0.36 |   0.05 |   0.07 | USD

  SUBTOTAL   |  87.39 |  84.46 |  53.64 |  52.92 | 102.24 | 291.20 | 123.98 |  45.44 |  53.10 |

  Huobi      | 131.14 | 187.12 | 154.12 | 185.15 | 163.47 | 352.76 | 250.64 | 123.38 | 122.00 | CNY
  OKCoin     |  53.49 | 140.75 |  87.71 | 141.90 |  84.03 | 275.68 | 150.41 |  83.60 | 129.17 | CNY
  BTC-China  |  10.97 |  15.23 |   9.29 |  10.42 |  13.12 |  27.72 |  14.72 |   6.71 |   7.17 | CNY
  Bter       |   0.77 |   0.63 |   0.48 |   0.62 |   0.53 |   1.10 |   0.53 |   0.31 |   0.29 | CNY

  SUBTOTAL   | 196.37 | 343.73 | 251.60 | 338.09 | 261.15 | 657.26 | 416.30 | 214.00 | 258.63 |

  TOTAL      | 283.76 | 428.19 | 305.24 | 391.01 | 363.39 | 948.46 | 540.28 | 259.44 | 311.73 |



All numbers were collected by hand from the site http://bitcoinwisdom.com. Beware of possible errors.

For each exchange, the numbers include only the trade volume to/from the currencies listed in the rightmost column. Trade between BTC and other cryptocoins, such as LiteCoin, is NOT included.

Dates on the header line are UTC. Specifically, "01/15" means "from 01/15 00:00:00 UTC to 01/15 23:59:59 UTC". (Beware that Bitcoinwisdom uses your local time, so the date may appear to be off by 1 day.  For example, if you are 2 hours west of Greenwich, it may show "01/14 22:00" when the UTC time is "01/15 00:00".)

The thread got slow, so let me ask another basic question from a newbie who has never used bitcoin.

Suppose I am an expert programmer and the operator of a lare bitcoin exchange.  Suppose I keep several hundred thousand bitcoins in cold storage, split into (say) 10 lots with keys stored in pen drives, kept in safety deposit boxes of different banks.  (Sort of like this guy here http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/27/inside-japan-s-bitcoin-heist.html.)

Is there a way I could discover, by inspecting the blockchain or any other method, that I have already fetched and emptied six of those pen drives, and have only four more to go?

One thing is certain: every information therein is either true, or false, or nonsensical, or some other thing.

To me it is obvious that many people are desperately trying to hide what really happened in MtGOX.  I will not believe any statement or document about MtGOX that that is not a police report resulting from a thorough criminal investigation.  To this I may give as much credence as the standard internet rumor.

They are not for sale.  

Thanks.  (Someone else just sent it too.)  I will check.

But it seems that he deciphered all of TEN words.  Well, this guy got several dozen:
http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/04-05-20-manchu-theo/
http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/04-05-20-manchu-theo/f1r-reading.html
But Zbigniew apparently had no academic connection and therefore no University Press Office...


Absolutely.   

Chinese Slumber Method prediction for Saturday Mar/01

The price at the official Slumber hour today (Feb/28 19:00--19:59) was 3464 CNY.  The new data point leads to a slight revision of the last segment of the new trendline.  The average of the True Slumber Points since the Second Karpeles Catastrophe of Feb/20 (namely, Feb/21, 23--25, and 28) is now 3522 CNY instead of 3533. Thus,

Prediction valid for: Saturday 2014-03-01, 19:00--19:59 UTC (not before, not after)
Huobi's predicted price: 3522 CNY.
Bitstamp's predicted price: 575 USD.

The prediction is the blue rectangle at right in the chart below.  The orange and grey dots are the True and False Slumber Points, and the orange line is the new trendline.


For Bitstamp, as usual, I used Huobi's prediction divided by R = 6.12.

NOTE: An advantage of a flat prediction is that is irritates the bulls and the bears, equally.

Checking the Chinese Slumber Method predictions for Feb/28

(You weren't expecting it?  HA!  NOBODY expects the Chinese Slumber Inquisition!)

The chicken got tired it seems:

Prediction posted on: Friday 2014-02-28, 01:37 UTC
Prediction was valid for: Friday 2014-02-28, 19:00--19:59 UTC

Huobi's predicted price: 3533 CNY
Huobi's actual price (L+H)/2: 3464 CNY
Error: 69 CNY

Bitstamp's predicted price: 577 USD
Bitstamp's actual price (L+H)/2: 574 USD
Error: 3 USD

Trade volume V_d for today Feb/28 is already ~118 kBTC, and volume V_h in the official Slumber hour (19:00--19:59) was 546 BTC; so, by the new rule V_h/V_d < 0.005, it is a True Slumber Point, barely.

The price ratio between Huobi and Bitstamp has been close to the usual R = 6.12. Actually, for the last three days it was a bit lower, closer to 6.0.  That's strange since the official exchange rate increased three days ago from 6.09 to 6.14.

The Huobi prediction in question is the rightmost blue rectangle on the chart below.  The light blue-gray rectangles are the previous predictions.  The orange and grey dots are the True and False Slumber Points, the mean Huobi prices at 19:00 UTC every day.  The orange line is the trend that was assumed for the prediction.


The following chart shows the Bitstamp prices and predictions. The orange and grey dots are Huobi's prices at 19:00 UTC every day, divided by R = 6.12.  The orange line is the trend used in the prediction, which is Huobi's trend divided by R (6.40 for Feb/07--09, 6.12 for all other times).

My point was that the FBI apparently thinks that they can prove that he (and Shrem) did their alleged crimes by moving these and those BTCs this and that way.

I read here a few days ago that some US court ordered MtGOX to preserve certain of its records.  I suppose it is related to the Greene lawsuit.

Well, the FBI apparently thinks it can prove such things in the Silk Road cases.

And I believe courts have taken seriously thefts or scams involving intangibles like videogame points and weapons.   As long as there is a legally valid and binding contract, and the customer can prove that the company did not honor it, the court may work, methinks.

I understand that he filed for bankrupcy, not reorganization, is this correct?

I can believe that  he may not suffer any other punishment for the insolvency itself (i.e. for being an incompetnent manager and losing investors money because of that).

However I suppose that he still may be prosecuted criminally if it is found that he did any fraudulent management,  such as withdrawing profits for himself while the company was insolvent, or faking technical problems to prevent withdrawals. Is there such crime in Japan?  Does the bankruptcy proces exclude it?


Wow! Indeed...

I am not sure I understand the question.

You mean, buy XRP with CNY, withdraw the XRP, and sell it on some non-Chinese exchange?  They can do that with BTC too, but it is not "taking CNY out of China"  nor "bringing USD into China".

Someone recently posted (yesterday?) a booklet, for foreigners, explaining the main aspects.

The proposal is interesting but there are many practical problems.  If MtGOX has enough assets to honor only (say) 20% of the client's account balances, then those clients who join would need to have their balances reduced by 80% anyway, otherwise it would be a scam for new depositors. 

Anyway, the filing for bankruptcy makes that proposal moot, I suppose,

Moreover, it remains to be seen whether those "millions" of MtGOX clients are any more real than MtGOX's bitcoins.  I suspect that they had less than 10,000 active clients.

Their description of what China did is inaccurate, I assume that their reporting on Vietnam is not any better,

AFAIK, the Central Bank of China (PBoC) prohibited the use of bitcoin as currency of commerce, prohibited banks and other financial institutions from playing with it, prohibited payment processors from feeding the exchanges, and banned the sale of bitcoins by e-commerce sites.

Thus, bitcoin as currency is pretty much dead in China.  Bitcoins can still be bought and traded at the exchanges, and may enter and leave the country; but since they cannot be legally used for anything else in China, for most Chinese they must have become little more than a gambling tool.

The only way to get money in or out of the exchanges is in CNY throught Chinese banks. Any profits the Chinese traders may make are in CNY and come out of the pockets of other Chiense traders.  That is true even for traders who do arbitrage between China and the rest of the world. 

Any Chinese tourist who pays his expenses abroad with bitcoins that he bought in China is not evading Chinese currency export constraints, because  those expenses are actually paid by the non-Chinese traders who bought his bitcoins with non-Chinese currency at the non-Chinese exchanges.   From PBoC's point of view, that is good.

Any foreigner who tries to do the reverse, in order to exploit the involuntary generosity of Chinese bitcoin traders, would have to open a bank account in China first.

I am guessing that Vietnam, at worst, did something similar.  Let's wait for better reports.

In either case, the "loss" of those coins, per se, should have no effect on the market.

MtGOX customers owned imaginary bitcoins and imaginary dollars, but when that fact was discovered/leaked they were already cut off from the market, so the effect was entirely confined to them. 

As long as customers at other exchanges continue to believe that they own real bitcoins and real dollars, the amounts of those presumed assests that are avaliable for trading in those markets wil be the same as they were before MtGOX's failure.  The key loss and closure, per se, will create neither a surplus nor a shortage of coins in those markets.

Of course the loss and closure will have indirect psychological effects, and it is hard to see how they could lead to a prcie increase.

From Rick Falkvinge's blog:
http://falkvinge.net/2014/02/28/the-gox-crater-crowd-detectives-reveal-billion-dollar-heist-as-inside-job/