Topic: MtGox withdrawal delays [Gathering] - page 251. (Read 908751 times)

Is an edited screenshot worth more than my word?  I obviously have to edit out all personal information, and while I'm at it I may edit anything.  Which I will be accused of anyway, so I'm not going to bother.  Either you trust me or you don't.  I am buying btw (EUR or USD, price here).

The SEPA queue is just below 5 weeks now.  Don't think it has been up to 6, at least not since June.

31.4k BTC (36.7k now) is what's left in asks in the order book, and this number decreases because people have been buying a lot of BTC lately.  You may have noticed the price increase.  When you buy BTC, the BTC you bought will disappear from the order book (the ask side) and go into your balance.  The total balance isn't public.  It is obvious that the amount in bids have increased as well.  It as below 11 million a week ago.  I doubt people have deposited 2.5 million USD to MtGox the last few days, so I guess this number is taken from public bids in the order book.  You probably know that people can keep an USD balance on MtGox without placing it all in public bids, so this is a sign of people shifting from selling BTC to buying BTC, which is typical for a rally.  You can see the same happening on all exchanges.

USD are leaving, just very very slowly.  USD is a convertible currency, and many people convert their USD to EUR or JPY and withdraw through that route.  3 million EUR (~4 million USD) is leaving each month via SEPA.  JPY comes in addition to this, and is likely more.  At the same time the order book (bids) doesn't seem to shrink much.  This fascinates me.  It should be possible to empty MtGox in four months on EUR withdrawals alone, and much less when you add JPY.  Either new deposits are coming in, or there are a lot of balance on MtGox which is not currently visible in bids.  Same thing probably for asks.

People who think to make a profit wire BTC to MtGox and sell there. This gives MtGox a steady supply of BTC. And they will hold your cash for 6-8 weeks before a payout (at least in EUR).

They should sell to a broker/dealer offering forex transactions. Would solve all kinds of problems. Unfortunately there probably aren't that many who would bite. Does anyone know anybody at XE? They added XBT as a currency for watching a few months ago but haven't gone live with bitcoin trading yet. Just checked and they're still showing the MTGOX price no less.

At this point why don't the current owners just sell the company to some new people so they can move on and work on other things.  The new guys can deal with the US gov't and bang their head against a wall all day long.  There are people in the world who are masochistic enough for this task.

The current owners did some things that appear were intended to evade compliance with US laws and/or regulations, whether one agrees with these or not at this point does not matter.  Most likely like as was the case with Square in Florida they, the corporation, will have to pay a bunch of fines. 

IF things get resolved at the federal level then they will have state AG's lining up to slap 6+ figure fines for flouting state regulations.  We are talking about years, not weeks...

Sounds like a statement from a PR agency.

That's what I thought. There are no "other methods".

I sold some coins in the middle of July and early August, did 2 withdrawals (few days each after each sale) to my US bank account, and still nothing. I've talked to them numerous times, always being courteous, but I'm still getting the ring around. In august, they told me 2-3 weeks, now they simply say, "we've got a backlog and working on the queue." To add insult to injury, I recently received an email stating that they can "manually" process my transfer for a 5% fee if I am in a hurry for funds, essentially quadrupling the $60 charge for 2 wire transfers, and when I asked how long this other process would take, they still did not give me a timeline. Why are you even offering me this other process if you don't know how long this takes? Honestly, at this point, I'm moving my bitcoins out because they are just being scumbags. As good as they were, they won't be anymore at this rate.

I'm sure that most representatives have never even heard of Bitcoin, and if they have, they have only the most thin understanding consider it a 'tool for criminals' as do much of our general population.

I detailed my interaction a few pages back:

  https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3334957

The particular question of interest was:

  "4) If it is unsafe to attempt this transfer due to confiscation, or considered illegal due to U.S. or Japanese regulatory issues,    please detail the issues so that I may solicit assistance from my elected representative."

Now, of course I am sensitive to communications constraints that Mt. Gox might feel due to legal issues, but it should have been clear that they had a customer who had some desire to cooperate in an attempt to dig at the (probable) underlying issues.

Even though their response was laughable and untruthful boilerplate I still withheld it from public exposure, though in fairness there is no way for them to know that I would do so.

Maybe Mt. Gox is working the problem on their own with various legal maneuvers and what-not, but if that is the case they should figure out some way to communicate this.  As it is, they are obviously blowing smoke up their customer's asses with the 'several weeks' nonsense.  As a result they look more like BFL than they do a legitimate, trustworthy, and competent business.

MtGox are very careful of what they say in public due to the ongoing case with the DHS and the process with FinCen.  It is a delicate situation.  I am sure relevant government representatives get all the information they request.  Care to tell what your question was?

I made a withdraw request with every intention of doing just this since when I made it two months ago it was already clear that there were problems in this area and there was every possibility that Mt. Gox would fail to get me my money.

Unfortunately trying to address the underlying fundamental problem (corp/gov interference) requires at least a tiny bit of cooperation from Mt. Gox.  When I made an effort to obtain any usable information from them I got back standard boilerplate and nothing which was either usable or even honest.  I got back the standard 'several weeks' bullshit which is both amusing and offensive.

This is actually a bit of a shame because I happen to have the good fortune to be represented by lawmakers who have taken a leading role in addressing the abusive practices of the banking system over the years, and who is especially responsive to the problems of his constituency in the case of my house representative.

 edit: spelling

woah 100 pages, i am so glad i moved my accounts out months ago... what a time sink

It is difficult for US customers.  The problems were created by the US government in the first place (no more redeemable codes for fiat, no more LR, no more Dwolla, etc), so please complain to your government/congressman/president/neighbour.  MtGox have very limited options to transfer USD, and have to be very careful not to abuse their options because abuse may interfere with their application to become a payment service.  It is possible to make a express manual withdrawal for a 5% bank fee (very limited, available at MtGox's discression), or just wait it out.  Trade while you wait, and you may make more USD to withdraw when it is back to normal.

Ya, kinda like Mt. Mazama --> Crater Lake in my state of Oregon.


So true.  I was, and still am, favorable to Mt. Gox, but I drew down my account to near zero because they cannot or will not provide basic information I need to make rational decisions.  If they could have found a way to be forthright about their problems there is every possibility that I would use them as my primary means of conducting business in Bitcoinland, and that I would be pretty accepting of delays and hassles.

I continue to believe that most of Mt. Gox's problems are something they regret deeply but have no power to control.  Even so, if they cannot provide information I need then they are useless to me.

It is completely possible that they provide good service to a sub-set of their more desirable customers, and if that is the case I could see a business rational both for them doing so and for such customers to continue to patronize them.  But I am probably going to be bringing a fair amount of BTC to the market over the coming years.  If BTC liquidity is something that an exchange needs (and looking at their public information through the various charting services it seems to be likely) then scaring away customers in my category seems short sighted.


I would not count Mt. Gox out just yet.  Yes, they have lost their 10x advantage in terms of BTC liquidity (and if they retain it by burning their own sizable stash that is unsustainable) but they have a long and relatively good track record.  At least by Bitcoin-land standards.  If all competition who reaches a certain size runs into the same problems, Mt. Gox could limp along competitively.

Mt. Gox's biggest danger seems to me to be that one of their competition gets favorable treatment by the regulators and banks as a means of guiding the Bitcoin userbase to a watering hole with is, for some reason, desired by the corp/gov power structures.

How about you show us a screenshot instead of just saying "i received my withdrawal".

Cancel withdraw, withdraw BTC, sell @ other exchange for a loss.

Which "other methods" allow a US customer to withdraw their USD from MtGox?

At this point, it's fair to say they are emptygox. Look at the historical order book chart: http://www.blockchained.com/depth_mtgox.png. Only in August 2012 have there (briefly) been fewer Bitcoins on MtGox because ask orders were wiped in a technical problem.

Furthermore, their market share, even including all currencies, is continuing its slow descent, sending emptygox more and more into irrelevancy. On many days already, mtgoxUSD is #2 or #3, and it is not long anymore until that is true for the 30d scale as well, for the first time.

Of course this could have all been stopped or delayed by simply being honest with their customers. The last update on the matter was on 5th of August, and it did not explain WHY they cannot seem to find a single bank that does not have ridiculous limits nor HOW and WHEN they are planning to move forward and ensure people will ever see their USD again without having to resort to a haircut.

Customers do not even know the realistic time for a SWIFT withdrawal, where the backlog reaches to mid June, over 4 months old. On the withdrawal page, it will merely tell you to expect "2 weeks" or more depending on amount. This has caused many losses as people are unable to plan.

Currently, the best option would probably be to either shut down mtgoxUSD trading entirely as it is not anymore a market (a market is where buyers and sellers meet) or alternatively to disable SWIFT withdrawals except for the only actually working option, that is the emergency/manual withdrawal.

Thanks!  My own 8k SEPA withdrawal from September 11th changed to pending today.  I will have it in my account tomorrow.  On schedule.  The EUR volume between September 11. and October 4. has been lower than normal.  I expect MtGox to process up to two days of withdrawals per day for the next week or so, catching up two weeks of withdrawals in one week. 

Note: This is just a forecast.  I am not affiliated with MtGox, and have no other basis for my prediction than public trade information.