Topic: Is it time to start organising large scale legal action against MtGox? (Read 2201 times)

quote author=Nagle link=topic=469428.msg5186276#msg5186276 date=1392587488]
As I wrote in July 2013:

That list was for when they were still operating. At this point, forcing Mt. Gox into involuntary bankruptcy in Japan is the way to go. That takes control away from Mt. Gox management in about two weeks and puts the assets under the control of a receiver. Someone on this board claims they're already doing that.

In Japan, only the lawyer can collect a debits on behalf of a creditor.

Can anyone confirm or refute this ?

Sorry for the spelling its a cut and paste.

Thanks for that INFO.

HERE is a list of ENGLISH SPEAKING LAWYERS IN JAPAN:

http://www.nzembassy.com/japan/new-zealanders-overseas/living-japan/legal-advice-and-list-lawyers

i like the goon idea best, agree with forgetting about legal action for now

stop throwing around big words. if you want to sue them go ahead. spend your money.
you'll get nothing. only your lawyer will.

Im getting a little tired but thought i shall reply quick while waiting for gox, former online poker player turned trader here btw


Again maybe i haven't communicated clearly.  I can see libertarianism working some time in future society but because we aren't currently anywhere close to a libertarian society & we have a finite life i think its bizarre to run your business full on libertarian style.   That is what i mean by saying "libertarianism gone too far" -  too far too soon.   

You cant trust a single thing gox says, its kinda repulsive.  Yes i wont deal with gox again but i still care about strangers who do based on my socialization and selfishly.... gox are established & take the fish money.

I dont know the correct way to run a business is in this industry.  I find myself constantly annoyed with the way businesses are run in this industry & i see many others annoyed.  An annoyed community is no good. 

Pokerstars would be a great model although they killed the action in poker so i dunno if i would welcome that as a trader.... lots of action trading crypto vs online poker currently.  Guess crypto will go same way as poker though.


Again some people arent storing, they just deposited to gox to buy but couldnt get out - it is their fault though yep. 

The trusting of random individuals is because the reward is so high, more than poker.  I dont think anyone here trusts shipping multiple $k to any exchange currently apart from maybe bitstamp & even then the gov can shut them down.   


The gox CEO is an early bitcoin adopter with a reported personal 300k BTC (forbes article can link if needed).  I believe he has zero money problems, gox might be the richest BTC holders in the world.... i believe the fiat withdraw problem is real but it suits him to not work too hard to fix so he can arb the market for months on end.   

I think the recent hack cost him some BTC, hes dragging his feet taking time to not process withdraws incase he messes up & a ton of BTC gets sent out to people it shouldnt like before.   

Im concerned he will see this as a good opportunity to mess with the outflow of BTC for a longer period or for times in the future & add that to the gox of tricks.  I think we need to apply pressure to stop this.

I will have to read & watch your vid tomorrow, pretty tired

If you pm me, I can provide a few good books on amazon that can be purchased used for under $8. You seem intelligent but unfamiliar with a lot of established theory. If you enjoy learning for its own sake, then you'll love finance theory. If you have ADHD (i.e. you'd rather watch game of thrones than read the books which are infinitely better) then here's a youtube video which essentially replaces the 5 books so long as you find and research answers to the questions which will stem from a curious mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8

I'm new to this forum, but I'm not new to all forums. I know enough to know not to school somebody or make them look bad when you have less than 10 posts and they have 600. What you're basically arguing is the "libertarianism doesn't work" argument presented by bloggers such as this one and this one and this one.

In essence, the counter-argument to the statement no type of society could function if in all business contracts could be broken or we have absolutely zero trading standard. is to barter directly until enough trust is built up to trade 1 potato today for 1 radish tomorrow until more trust is built, 10 for 10, etc..

Every producer of goods and every provider of services is faced with the dilemma of being unable to get ANYTHING of value for resources that will be wasted or utilized ineffeciently. In such a society, every individual with extra resources which are essentially valueless unless traded will have nothing to lose by trading with a new individual (what good are rotten fruits/vegetables?).

Look up "2p2 marketplace" where tens of thousands of dollars are regularly traded between poker players for shifting account balances to/from different websites so as to minimize their overall net exposure to risk of this message:

"Sorry, we are experiencing only a minor glitch and are temporarily limiting withdrawals while this issue is temporarily resolved"

Every bitcoin owner who was once an online poker player and endured "April 15th 2011" know how this Mt. Gox issue will play out: Mt. Gox doesn't have enough bitcoins to cover the face value of all their deposits.

Back to my main point, keeping money or storing anything of value with someone or something else other than yourself exposes you to a new set of risks. Poker players kept barely enough online in their "poker accounts" of various online enterprises down to the point of having dozens of people in their blackberry they could borrow from in 15 minutes because they collectively knew it's smarter to expose yourself to the risk of being scammed by another poker player than by being "scammed" by a poker site or online bitcoin exchange (although poker players are more harsh and will call a spade a spade) whereas I've found here and on reddit (as a lurker) that bitoin aficionados are so much more trusting of businesses than of random individuals.

In the poker world, it actually makes more sense to loan money to a poker player (whose skills you can vouch for by watching him play or requesting his last 10,000 hand histories) than to deposit money onto stars, ftp, or ub. There was a post I read earlier saying it's easy to sue mt. gox and get a judgment and sell it to a collection agency etc.. He must have been fresh out of law school because there's a saying "you can't get blood out of a turnip" and if mtgox is insolvent, I predict that half of the bitcoin community will tolerate 20-40 days of excuses before finally admit that their once valuable bitcoinage was traded for a worthless message saying that their account balance has XX.

Back in the early 2000's when a new poker site would open up and match deposits 100% up to $50, I deposited some, played a few hours, withdrew my original $50 and would run up a large sum of money. I've probably done this 10 times and sooner or later the site would close down, starting with an inability to withdraw funds. Then a unfalsifiable explanation which wasn't true yet was halfway plausible. They'd promise a "fix-by date" and then would allow you to "request withdrawals" then blame the problem on too many requests and then they would blame the surge of cashouts (a convenient excuse--as it draws attention away from the original issue of insolvency).

Another surefire way to guarantee a site is going bankrupt is if they still allow deposits, yet limit their withdrawals. I've only created an account today because I felt the need to share my experiences which are relevant and unfolding predictably the same way with mtgox as with now-defunct poker sites. Legal action is only symbolic because "your money" isn't really your money once you no longer have control of it. A symbolic legal claim against an insolvent creditor might score a moral victory or earn you sympathy from the community, but I warn everyone to save their money if mtgox truly is underwater in terms of outstanding bitcoin balances verses actual bitcoins stored in their possession. The best they can do is to acquire some emergency, short-term loans from major bitcoin stakeholders who will then work out a deal behind-the-scenes for a percent ownership in the company if it survives the 6-month period where net withdrawals exceed the net depositors.

Let me explain myself better... i am also very much interested in libertarianism, i probably am a libertarian although i dont like to box stuff like that.

This isnt just a question of people being stupid to store money on gox, some bought in last month & could be stuck on gox. 

My point was no type of society could function if in all business contracts could be broken or we have absolutely zero trading standard.   There is no point in money/trade/services if nobody can be "trusted" at all.   You pay someone to save you the time to do stuff yourself.

Yes you have to do your own research before giving someone your money but if they forever move the goal posts & arent accountable then its a complete breakdown & no trade functions.

We also currently arent in a libertarian society & personally i do "care" about strangers ive never met - its probably the socialization ive received from society yes.



 

I'm a libertarian and keep my few bitcoins in an offline computer. Please don't equate libertarianism with storing your bitcoins on someone else's wallet. Once you transferred the bitcoins out of your control, they're essentially an alt-coin at that point.

^ thats awesome thanks

Personally i like starting with the hiring of a collection agency, its immediately gets the message across if we send some goons around.  Could get it done in a few days.

What would be good is to find a Japanese person who uses gox & can speak english.  If they dont get BTC withdraws up in a few hours i will be working on this.

Anyone else is welcome to join the fight, i got nothing better to do right now

As I wrote in July 2013:


It's easier to do this now than it was months ago, because there's been so much press coverage of Mt. Gox's problems. You have a lot less explaining to do.

For US persons owed less than $15K, the Delaware Justice of the Peace court looks like an excellent option. It's cheap, it's in the US, and Mt. Gox has to send someone from Japan or they lose by default. You don't need a lawyer, although getting some legal advice on filing would be a good idea. If you win, you have a judgment against Mt. Gox, which you still have to collect. You can sell that judgment to a collection agency for a discount, and you can publicize it. You can apply enough pain to Mt. Gox that you'll get paid.

Long over due for some action against them.

But talk is cheap. Let's see what people come up with instead of just talking about it.

I don't believe it is time to start legal action.
I just recently wired them $$ (Only 1,000 USD) since there is such a big price difference on their exchange compared to other exchanges.

It could emerge that they have more credability in the market place since they were one of the first to take a stand against the problem of transaction malleability. Other exchanges continued to trade.  I am hoping that they don't get their issue fixed until after my wire gets posted to that account.  I plan on taking advantage of the level of investor confidence in the MtGox exchange as it is related to other exchanges.

In my view of BitCoin trading, it is like buying an ounce of silver for $7 USD (on MtGox) when everybody else is trading at $20 USD.

Yep, i can only assume they must believe our money is theirs to play with as they choose? - we put money in MtGox, MtGox get to play how they want.

Its libertarianism gone too far and actually defeats the function of money, trade & contracts entirely.  No future libertarian society would function this way.

I don't have any business there, and I sympathies those who do.
What I don't appreciate about Gox is their attitude!
They honestly think it is ok to withhold clients' money and they are doing the best they can?
If it was a local business in any country, they would have been sued long ago.
They certainly need legal pressure to wake them up.

He still has my f*ckin bitcoinica money  what a (hilarious) mess

in a perfect world people never would have dealt with them yup.

agree on the stop using them.

i am willing to run the legal action, if anyone else wants to help, great! PM me or post here.

If you have any sizeable amount on mtgox, the appropriate time for legal action was like a month ago when btc withdrawals started konking out, if not earlier. Now is as good a time as any though, I suppose.

I would have thought that the most appropriate large scale action is for people to stop using MtGox, thus making them irrelevant and leading to the inevitable loss of board place!

If people cannot stop using MtGox then I don't see how trying to motivate people to do something harder—become part of a legal action—is going to work.