June 16th, 2011 - Tokyo (JP)
MT.GOX RESPONDS TO
REUTERS “WE WANT BITCOIN TO BE UNDERSTOOD” ARTICLELast week Brett Wolf sent us an email hoping we would respond to some of the recent controversies surrounding the Silk Road website. At the time we were unable to respond (they are subject to email response delays, just like everyone else), but after seeing his article about it and reading the mention that “Mt.Gox could not be contacted” we decided to reach out. Like any good reporter, he poked and prodded us a bit about our stance on Silk Road and we advised we have no opinion on the matter, but cummunicated that we did send a letter to the DEA to assert our position in the bitcoin economy, and to shed some light on bitcoin itself to try and put to rest any misconceptions.
We believe this initial contact with the DEA is of the utmost importance for the immediate future of bitcoin. The letter ended by saying that we will comply with any court sanctioned investigations and that they are invited to contact us to better understand not only what we do but what bitcoin is. We don’t really think this should be shocking to the bitcoin community as we will be legally obligated to regardless. Also, I think it is safe to say that we do not intend to enable illegal activities or have blood on our hands by association, so to speak.
A realization must be made, and that is due to nature of exchanges we are forced to deal with banks and therefor need to stay within the boundaries the regulatory bodies have set. What we intend to do in the future is to stifle and hopefully stop those boarders from closing in on us. We are not here to flip the economic system on it’s head, nor do we believe it is necessary for that to happen in order for bitcoin to be a player in world markets. We have to exist and exercise our right to do business from within the confines of the system.
Going forward, we are going to be walking a very thin line with how to proceed with promoting and backing bitcoin. It will not do Mt.Gox or the bitcoin community any good if we are not willing to comply with the laws we are subject to and are consequently shut down. In fact, doing so would only work to taint bitcoins public image and negate any public recourse we might otherwise garner (the media is llouder than the bitcoin community, unfortunately). That being said, bitcoin will be successful in it’s own way and is not intrinsically tied to the future of Mt.Gox. Likely as time goes on bitcoin will become less and less reliant on our exchange, which in many ways is a good thing as it diversifies the communities portfolio, so to speak and would result in less heat being put on us too. However, the reality is that with Mt.Gox being the current mainstay in the bitcoin economy the immediate future of bitcoin is heavily reliant on the public and political perceptions of what we do, and how we do it. So we will continue to keep an open door policy with any and all agencies and governments so long as they are willing to understand bitcoin and work within the law.
We understand many people in the community won’t agree, and will look at our exchange (and others) as needing to have a mutually exclusive relationship with bitcoin. We see that on an ideological front, this is likely true, however to have bitcoin take on critical mass we believe exchanges are very necessary entities and are likely the only way politicians, banks and governments will let bitcoin continue on to legitimacy.
We invite the community to vet our position intelligently on the public forums, and we will chime in from time to time.
-The Mt.Gox Team
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