How do you explain the timing? The withdrawal problems started around the 5th of June. The first Dwolla seizure happened on June 14th. You have nine days to explain.
Gox admits in their answer to Coinlab that money sent to Coinlab's bank accounts was credited to the balances of Gox customers, but the money was actually held by Coinlab. It seems pretty obvious to me that Gox has been facing financial challenges for a while, and when the two major holes caused by DHL and Dwolla converged with a declining volume at the beginning of June, the shit hit the fan.
CoinLab doesn't explain it at all. They had millions on USD in profit, a fat order book and more than 5 million USD on the two bank accounts seized by the DHS.
Finally, 5th to 14th June seems pretty close to me. Maybe the DHL action started a few days before it actually hits the news. Anyhow, it looks obvious to me there are diverse factors that are putting Gox under financial stress.
Dwolla were processing withdrawals until Friday 14th. Only bank wires were delayed. Five weeks for SEPA and more than a week for international wires. If the DHS action started earlier, it had no effect on Dwolla withdrawals which it was supposed to target, but on SEPA (delayed for as long as I can remember) and wires from their bank in Japan. Unlikely. DHS didn't even target MtGox. Only Mutum Sigillum LLC.
Nope. Your explanation doens't work.
We will have to agree to disagree then. In my book, a $10M hole for a young and relatively small company as MtGox is a
huge hole. Pretending its "peanuts" is being in denial of the facts. You repeat they have "millions on the order book", which obviously doesn't change the fact that a part of that money, credited to customers balances, is very probably not backed up by fiat in their banks, as they are obviously short of $10M. In fact, they pretty much admit it:
Defendants are informed and believe that in March and April, 2013 MtGox customers, at the
suggestion of CoinLab, deposited $12,788,701.08 into one or more CoinLab bank accounts;
CoinLab then caused the amount of such funds to be credited to such customers' MtGox
accounts but CoinLab did not transfer the actual funds into the MtGox bank account. As a
result, such customers' MtGox account reflected a higher amount of currency funds available
to such customers than were actually in the MtGox bank account. In April, 2013, and upon
the demand of MtGox, CoinLab transferred a portion of those amounts, $ 7,473,490.29, to the
MtGox bank account, leaving a balance of approximately $ 5,315,210.79 to be transferred to
the MtGox account and which is being wrongfully held by CoinLab.
So they they are admitting they have a big hole, and they do not say anywhere that they had to cover the hole with their own money (I would have stated that clearly in the official document, to wipe out doubt about insolvency - wouldn't have you?). The only hard cold fact they are stating is "
such customers' MtGox account reflected a higher amount of currency funds available to such customers than were actually in the MtGox bank account".
Plus, instead of being transparent and disclosing their balances as any serious company would do after the mainstream media started to write that Gox might be insolvent (Forbes, Wired....), while many customers started to leave them for good, causing a very unhealthy spread of +10% between exchanges, they just make up absurd excuses such as
"the current withdraw problems are being caused by the traditional banking system, not because of a lack of liquidity at MtGox. The traditional banking partners that MtGox needs to work with, are not able to keep up with the demands of the growing Bitcoin economy" Really? The above seems the most plausible answer to you after all the facts Gox have been hiding and that we now know?
Finally, I'm amazed by the fact you keep repeating "they have $12M in their order book", like that is somewhat reassuring:
- that money is just on Gox balances, it might very well not being backed by fiat in their back accounts (AS THEY STATED IN THE ANSWER TO COINLAB)
- even if that money is fully backed by existing funds in their bank, what do you want them to do with it? That is supposed to be their customers money, they are not supposed to operate/cover holes with that!!
- I don't know if you have any experience in running a business, but it doesn't seem so: the fact is they only have $12M in the order book (again: customers money), and they admittedly have a hole of $10M. So, the hole is almost equal to the full amount of fiat they have in their order book, and roughly half of the all time high fiat amount they EVER had on their order book. That's HUGE, try to extrapolate that to Forex and tell me that covering such a hole wouldn't be a problem for them
- Another fact is they allegedly had only an income of $8M during the 4 months of all time high usd volume EVER, and again the hole is $10M. Let me tell you that's a huge hit for a business, having a hole significantly (20%) bigger that the income you got in your best 4 months ever is a BIG problem for ANY company. When the alleged hole was "just" $5M, I thought it was bearable. Now that we discover the hole is $10M, I can't help being worried.
As I stated many times I hope Gox succeeds, and I do not think that the $10M hole will inevitably kill them. If their finances were managed very well prior to Coinlab's and Dwolla issues, they might be able to cover for everything, but not without a big effort. The truth is a) they are not being transparent about their problems nor with their finances (and being an exchange that manages customers funds, they SHOULD); and b) a lot of customers are leaving for good and their volume, and thus their trading fees and projected income, are shrinking day by day.
