Mt. Gox finds 200,000 bitcoins in “old-format wallet”

[KamaAina]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Mt. Gox, the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange that filed for bankruptcy this month after it said it lost 750,000 of its users currency, just reported that it found 200,000 bitcoins that were found in an “old-format wallet.”

For you kids at home dealing in old school, E Pluribus Unum kinda legal tender, that’s referring to a digital storage file kind of wallet, not the old leathery kind.

In a message posted Friday on the exchange’s website, Mt. Gox’s former chief executive, Mark Karpeles, said ”Mt. Gox Co., Ltd. had certain old­format wallets which were used in the past and which, Mt. Gox thought no longer held any bitcoins.”

But on March 7, Karpeles wrote, the exchange “confirmed that an old format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC.” That still doesn’t account for all of the amount that was unaccounted for, plus another 100,000 of Mt. Gox’s own bitcoin reserve. Total value at the time: $450 million. Based on current rates, it is worth about a quarter of that.

Read more: http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2014/03/21/mt-gox-finds-200000-bitcoins-in-old-format-wallet/

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Curiouser and curiouser.

[PoliticAverse]

1. I never find any money in my old wallets. n/t

[brooklynite]

2. Have they checked the electronic couch cushions?

[KamaAina]

3. Thread win!

[PeoViejo]

4. Do Cheetos come in Electronic Format?

[olddad56]

13. No, you can print them from a 3d printer, but it only takes bit coins.

[zonkers]

22. Bwah!!! That about tears it.

[DesertDiamond]

5. They should check in the old-format "in the crack between the sofa cushions and the sofa" too.

[OregonBlue]

6. So they found their imaginary money in an imaginary old wallet. Now that's funny.

[olddad56]

14. I surprised that they didn't find the exact amount that they imagined was missing in the old wallet

[Kelvin Mace]

7. Yeah, that REALLY makes me want to put my money

in Bitcoin.

[rocktivity]

8. 200,000 more reasons to avoid bitcoin like the plauge.

I was impressed by a news report about a bitcoin convention in Miami until I remembered that Miami is the drug money-laundering capital of the world.


rocktivity

[AtheistCrusader]

9. Must have been on an old ZIP drive.

I've got a box of those somewhere..

[LynneSin]

10. Maybe they should also check under the digital mattress and under the digital sofa cushions

[mwooldri]

11. There is a reason why Bitcoin is an experimental currency.

Mt. Gox proves the point.

I suppose they're welcome to the 0.000000001 BTC that I have.

[kentauros]

12. I bet someone emptied the bitcoin jar into that wallet,

and then misplaced it. They'll find their virtual keys in there for their Lightcycle, too.

[olddad56]

15. and then their dog bit the wallet.

[kentauros]

16. Yeah, but chewed up bitcoins

suffer no physical damage. However, I guess they can be scattered across the IT room

[VanillaRhapsody]

26. but will it make the dog virtually sick to eat so many bitcoins?

will they need the E-vet?

[kentauros]

29. Yes.

So long as they steer clear of either Dr. Norton, or Dr. McAfee

[VanillaRhapsody]

30. Esp that Dr McAfee...he loony...

[kentauros]

31. Insidiously loony!

[jmowreader]

17. If Karpeles can shit another 550,000 Bitcoin, people might quit wanting to drown him

For you kids at home dealing in new school digital terms, that's a drowning with a bathtub full of water and a dozen of his customers, not some sort of digital drowning.

[fujiyama]

18. This wasn't even the first time Mt. Gox had lost people's money

I have no idea why anyone would have put their money there after that.

Even if you're going to use Bitcoins, why use one of these shady exchanges? I can understand being distrustful of banks, but how is trusting random people on the internet any better?

[KamaAina]

19. The shady exchanges are the only market for bitcoin

That's the whole problem. Mt. Gox, for instance, began life as a trading site for game cards from "Magic: The Gathering" (which I used to play ) Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange.

[paleotn]

20. Stashed in a ....

....virtual mason jar, buried out in their digital backyard? Maybe they need to check their virtual pants pockets before they toss them in the wash. Under the front seats of the car is sometimes a good place to find loose "coins."

[VanillaRhapsody]

27. I highly recommend they check the backyard at that swank Bachelor Pad they built in Second Life...

can you exchange Linden bucks for Bitcoins by the way? What is THAT exchange rate?

[KamaAina]

28. ROFL!

[Tom Ripley]

21. There was also a bitcondom and some illegible code scribbled on a cocktail napkin in there

[MindMover]

23. Told ya ...

Star Member MindMover (3,966 posts)

1. They found a misplaced file in there computer ... BFD ...


http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4704234

[icymist]

24. I have a virtual bridge to virtually sell you...

[Blue_Tires]

25. MtGox finds 200,000 Bitcoin down the back of the couch

I don’t think any of us thought that MtGox was particularly well managed but the more we find out the worse it all seems to get. For today they’ve announced that they’ve just found 200,000 Bitcoins that had slipped down the back of the couch. No, really, someone running an exchange, offering a safekeeping and conversion facility, managed to just lose in their own systems over $115,000,000 at today’s prices, and what was once worth $200,000,000. It was in an old wallet that they thought was empty you see:

There’s two implications of this announcement. The first being that the organisation wasn’t, in fact, an organisation at all. It was a bunch of script kiddies having a lark. This isn’t, perhaps, the greatest of surprises to anyone who has been following the story.

The second is that MtGox has clearly been trading insolvently since June 2011. For those not entirely current on accounting law (and why should you be? This is a most, most, boring area) this is one of those no-nos that every entrepreneur is warned about. It’s OK to go bust: failure is how we learn. But don’t cross over into fraud and deception which is what insolvent trading is.

Think through what is being said here. They found these Bitcoin in an old wallet that was used before June 2011. And they’ve only just found them: therefore, between June 2011 and March 7 2014 they had a hole of 200,000 Bitcoin in their accounts. Yes, they were still there: but the management must have known that they didn’t have them for it to be even possible for them to have just found them. At which point the management should have stopped trading. Because with that 200,000 hole there’s no way that they could have met their accumulated financial obligations. This is what it means to trade insolvently. To pretend that you’ll be able to meet past, current and future financial obligations while knowing that you’ll not be able to do so.

http://pando.com/2014/03/21/mtgox-finds-200000-bitcoin-down-the-back-of-the-couch/