Talk:Mt. Gox

Change article title/company name formatting to Mt. Gox?

This is pretty minor, but I'm proposing changing the name of this article to Mt. Gox (with a space) rather than Mt.Gox, and using that spelling within the article except when referring to the full corporation name. Most mainstream media seem to favor Mt. Gox, with some notable exceptions that alternate inconsistently between that and Mt.Gox:

• The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today (with one exception in 12 articles), CBS News (with one exception in 7 articles), Fox News, CoinDesk (with two exceptions among many dozen articles) use "Mt. Gox"
• The New York Times, Money/Fortune/CNN (they publish web content together), and Bitcoin Magazine use both spellings, with even recent articles going back and forth.

Among their press releases, the company referred to itself as Mt.Gox consistently in early 2013. By April 2013, they had switched to using Mt. Gox consistently, except when using the company's full legal name "Mt.Gox Co. Ltd." From October until now they've switched to using MtGox consistently, except when using the full legal name "Mt.Gox Co. Ltd." Their logo looks like "MT.GOX", but since it's an image I'd view that as not relevant.

• 14 January 2014 "...link between MtGox and...." "MtGox denies that it...." "Mt.Gox Co. Ltd Team."
• 7 February 2014 "Dear MtGox Customers.... ...your MtGox wallet.... ...The MtGox Team"
• 20 November 2013 "Dear MtGox Customers," "the MtGox OTP Card" "Mt.Gox Co. Ltd Team."
• 10 October 2013 "...MtGox platform will be offline...."
• 5 August 2013 "August 2013 Mt. Gox Status Update" "Mt.Gox Co. Ltd Team." "Mt. Gox Co. Ltd. is a privately-owned Japanese corporation based in Tokyo, Japan."
• 25 June 2013 "Dear Mt. Gox Merchants," "...anyone with a Mt. Gox account..." "Mt.Gox Co. Ltd Team.
• 24 April 2013: "...Mt. Gox was hit by a strong DDoS attack..." "About Mt. Gox: Mt. Gox is a service of Tibanne Co. Ltd., a privately-owned Japanese corporation based in Tokyo, Japan."
• 13 March 2013 "Mt.Gox announces new withdrawal limit rules for its customers" "Mt.Gox Co. Ltd Team."
• 20 February 2013 "Mt.Gox account verification delays and solutions" "Mt.Gox Co. Ltd Team."

There's no clearly "right" answer, and I'm pretty sure opinions will differ; I think the best we can do is go with a majority, so please post your opinion.

––Agyle (talk) 23:53, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Any omission of spaces or punctuation is just stylistic. The period and the space are conventional in English, so should be used on Wikipedia unless there's a compelling reason against. Pburka (talk) 02:08, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
• Comment They filed for a US trademark as "MT.GOX" without a space. USPTO serial number 86016548, registration pending. But for trademark uniqueness purposes, capitalization and punctuation don't matter in the US. --John Nagle (talk) 05:03, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
• Comment We should at least use the same spelling throughout the article, except in the lead where alternative spellings could be listed. I don't mind which is used in the article. Danrok (talk) 15:30, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
• Making change. I'm going to make the change. I would have preferred more input, but people are welcome to continue weighing in on the issue, and it can be always be changed back. Agyle (talk) 22:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. Mark Karpeles weighed in on this matter. Personally, I prefer "Mt. Gox", as it better reflects the correct pronunciation, but here is the link to the Reddit discussion anyway: [1] Vir Novus (talk) 05:22, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Current event

Mt Gox is having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. They stopped all withdrawals on Friday, which was newsworthy enough to get them 117 articles in Google News. Just about every major financial news service worldwide, (Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, South China Morning Post, Sydney Morning Herald, Reuters, even Russia Today) covered this event. Mt. Gox announced they would be making another announcement on Monday. It's already Monday afternoon in Japan. No announcement yet. Expect extensive news coverage in the Western press on Monday. --John Nagle (talk) 05:17, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

On the bright side, nobody can accuse the subject of failing to meet Wikipedia's notability criteria, and they're still having a much better 2014 than fellow Bitcoin exchange BitInstant! ––Agyle (talk) 09:03, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

226 Google News articles today. Mt. Gox claming a technical problem is stopping Bitcoin withdrawals. Denials by the Bitcoin Foundation. Much scepticism of Mt. Gox's claims in the press. [2][3]. Not yet clear who's to blame. Let's wait about 24 hours before updating the article. --John Nagle (talk) 21:15, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Heavy press coverage continues. The Wall Street Journal had an email interview, and I updated the article to reflect that. Other press sources are very negative on Mt. Gox. "Dying" - Washington Post.[4] John Nagle (talk) 19:01, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Updated to reflect the last three days of events. Heavy press coverage continues, as do delays and evasive statements from Mt. Gox. John Nagle (talk) 20:25, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Someone removed the "current event" template. That's reasonable. After 12 days, this has gone from "sudden current event" to "ongoing mess". John Nagle (talk) 18:45, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Possible citogenesis concerning whether MtGox ever hosted an MtG trading site

The supporting evidence for the idea that MtGox ever had a trading card trading website appears to be an Archive.org stub saying that it was 'under construction', but no public evidence of a working site at that address has been identified. On Archive.org it appears to go from stub page claiming that an MtG site would someday come out to a Bitcoin exchange. It appears that the current Wired citation for that traces back to an old Wikipedia edit, which traces back to the Archive.org stub. In other words, there is currently no evidence that a Magic: the Gathering website ever existed in any working form at MtGox, even though the "patent pending" stub page makes it appear that it was originally intended to be one. It's probably not terribly important, but it may be an example of citogenesis as it's becoming a more widely used piece of trivia by news articles. 72.223.6.166 (talk) 20:52, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

I was unfamiliar with the term citogenesis, but I've seen the same phenomenon in scientific Wikipedia articles. While your Mt. Gox theory sounds plausible, unless a reliable source challenges the claim or provides an alternate history, I think all we can do is treat the now-established history as an uncontroversial fact. I think I read an article that characterized it as an unused domain name that the founder had intended to turn into a trading card site, which could allow introduction of a competing claim. Thanks for pointing out the discrepancy. ––Agyle (talk) 21:12, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

My results

The current version of the article states:

The Mt.Gox website was originally founded by Jed McCaleb as an online exchange for buying and selling Magic: The Gathering cards, a popular trading card game.[1]

reference to the Wired article http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/11/mtgox/ which was published very recently (why is there no older source?), just in 6 November 2013 (~2 years after the sale by McCaleb, approximately 4 years after the supposed Magic sales would've happened), which says

In 2011, Karpeles bought a fledgling website called Mt. Gox. Founded a few years earlier by an unemployed software hacker named Jed McCaleb, the site was originally an online marketplace where people could buy and sell cards for Magic: The Gathering, a weirdly addictive trading card game. Mt. Gox was short for “Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange.” But then McCaleb turned it into a website where people could exchange cash for bitcoins, a digital currency that had only just found its way onto the internet, and just as the exchange started to take off, he sold it to Karpeles.

'Unemployed' seems like a questionable way to describe McCaleb, who is a busy talented guy who has been involved in all sorts of projects (eDonkey, The Far Wilds, Mtgox, Opencoin/Ripple, angel investing etc), but that aside, the description of Mtgox is just flat background assertion: it's not attributed to Karpeles or anyone. So the first shade of doubt creeps in: what made the Wired writers think this?

If we look at the last version of the WP article before that Wired article, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mt.Gox&action=edit&oldid=579013088 We find that the intro makes the claim without any citation: "Mt.Gox was established in 2009 as a [[trading card]] exchange, but rebranded itself in 2010 as a bitcoin business and quickly became a dominant player in the field of Bitcoin exchanges." The history section expands a little more:

Its name was originally an [[initialism]] of Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange when it was an exchange for [[Magic: The Gathering Online]] playing cards.<ref name="wbm"/> However, the site abandoned Magic and became a bitcoin exchange, quickly growing to handle 60% of the [[bitcoin]] exchange volume, as of August 2013.<ref>{{cite web|title=Bitcoinity; 30 day market share |url=http://bitcoinity.org/markets/list?currency=ALL&span=30d|accessdate=5 August 2013}}</ref> It was established in 2010.<ref name="wbm">{{cite web|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20070817170606/http://mtgox.com/gwt/mtgox.php|title=Wayback Machine: Mt Gox|accessdate=12 April 2013}}</ref> Originally founded by Jed McCaleb, ownership of the company changed hands to its current owners, Tibanne Ltd., in March of 2011.<ref>[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4187.0 Mtgox is changing owners.]</ref> The exchange is currently run by Mark Karpeles.<ref>[http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/1/4154500/mt-gox-barons-of-bitcoin Mt Gox Barons of Bitcoin]</ref>

This is important, because this sounds just like the Wired summary. (Gosh, mainstream media like Wired cribbing from Wikipedia for background, and repeating its mistakes? I'm sure that's never happened before - Wired has such a universal reputation for accuracy and factchecking, right?)

Internet Archive and hosting evidence

But the reference provided in this version does not support the claim being made. If you look at that IA link, what Mtgox actually said was

Mt. Gox is in Beta so if you have any problems or suggestions please let us know: feedback@mtgox.com

No links to logins or signups, no fancy web design, just a short textual summary and a disclaimer. Mtgox.com was not selling anything at all in 2007. At most it was a domain and email address, perhaps put out there to gauge interest in the idea (if you look at the page source, it's not pure text: it had Google Analytics tracking setup). 'Beta' meant just that: not available to the public.

Mtgox.com was registered 2 January 2007, a WHOIS lookup can tell you. If we look at Mtgox.com's IA history in general (https://web.archive.org/web/20070501000000*/http://mtgox.com), what do we see? A few cached copies from 2007, an entire year with no version available, then in all of 2009 1 version. Is this 2009 version the promised Magic exchange? 2 years is enough time to code up a working exchange, one might think, given how quickly McCaleb was able to put up Mtgox from when he says he first heard of Bitcoin. But when we look at https://web.archive.org/web/20090812073342/http://www.mtgox.com/ what do we see?

Welcome to the Far Wilds! You are a warlord in the outskirts of the known world struggling to establish a kingdom in the wild lands. You must use strategy and wits to establish yourself and not be pushed back further into the wilderness. The Far Wilds is a unique turn based strategy game. Configure an army and fight on a random battlefield. Battles are dynamic. You must adapt your strategy to different battlefields conditions and opponents. Play now for Free!: 3d version or in a Browser

This has nothing whatsoever to do with a Magic card exchange. Then in 2010, Mtgox.com mysteriously disappears again for a protracted period, and finally resurfaces in February 2011 (https://web.archive.org/web/20110203031942/http://mtgox.com/) as the Bitcoin exchange we all know today.

So. In 2007, Mtgox.com was not trading cards. In 2008, it is mysteriously gone. In 2009, it was not trading cards but promoting a strategy game. In 2010, it was again mysteriously gone. In 2011, it was trading, but bitcoins.

What are we to make of it? Perhaps the Magic exchange operated in the interrregnums, selling in 2008, shutting down, starting back up in 2010, and shutting down again? The problem is that gaps like this in the IA, I know from past experience, generally are not mysterious failures of the IA to archive a site (the IA's coverage has improved considerably over the years), but generally indicate the site itself was unavailable for archiving. Unfortunately, the IA does not make logs indicating failed crawls available, so in theory these gaps could be because a IA server crashed and took copies with it or something like that. Very unlikely, IMO, but possible.

Fortunately, you don't need to take my word for it: I have been able to find a second uptime source, a DomainTools report on Mtgox.com: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/MtgOx-com-2013-12-12.pdf DomainTools does report why it has only the snapshots it has: the domain was simply unhosted in those years. Resolving the domain name to a server failed in 2008 and 2010 ie there was no site then.

So, when did Mtgox.com sell Magic cards? The domain was created in 2007. It didn't sell cards in 2007. There were no active servers in 2008. It was being used for promotion of Far Wilds in 2009. There were no active servers in 2010. It was being used for Bitcoin 2011-now. So don't give me the Wired crap: when did Mtgox sell Magic cards?

Some websites would offer on handling this domain matters and they claim to be experts on this. There are many local services like this website; Birmingham online marketer. Is it ok to let this type of website get a full copy of our host and share servers?

User discussions

Can we find any mention by anyone ever of having bought or sold Magic cards on Mtgox? I looked in Google using the following query to try to cut down on the echo chamber of Wired/Wikipedia references: (mtgox OR "mt gox" OR "mt.gox") magic cards -wiki -wired; further, I time-limited it to 1/1/2007 - 1/1/2011.

You will be unsurprised to find that there is not a single clear reference. Only the usual "omg I just learned Mtgox used to be a Magic exchange!" echo chamber. (Why do we know Mtgox used to sell Magic cards? Well, everyone says so...)

Founder

Well, OK, maybe no one in the world discussed their use of the Magic exchange even though Magic players are geeks who love discussing the topic online. Fortunately, the IA also has copies of the early 2010 blog posts by McCaleb discussing Bitcoin and Mtgox (eg https://web.archive.org/web/20101225014056/http://mtgox.com/blog/?m=201011 ). Surely we will find references there to how he decided to pivot to Bitcoin and abandon his tightlipped yet loyal Magic users? But all the titles refer to Bitcoin exclusively, and the surviving blog posts are pure Bitcoin.

McCaleb also had an account on Bitcointalk, of course. Perhaps in a more informal context he explains his abandonment of Magic? Let's look at his posts https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=489;sa=showPosts ; from his final post under that account:

I created mtgox on a lark after reading about bitcoins last summer. It has been interesting and fun to do. I’m still very confident that bitcoins have a bright future. But to really make mtgox what it has the potential to be would require more time than I have right now. So I’ve decided to pass the torch to someone better able to take the site to the next level.

Nope. Hm, how about the 18 July 2010 post where he announced the existence of Mtgox https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=444.msg3866#msg3866 ?

Hi Everyone, I just put up a new bitcoin exchange. Please let me know what you think. https://mtgox.com

Nope. Well, there's 10 pages of posts, maybe he mentions 'Magic' elsewhere? Some C-fs later... nope! Oh, and his personal Bitcointalk account (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=5322) does have one hit for the word "magic":

Hi I'm involved in a cryptocurrency related project and we are looking for someone that can work magic with javascript and jQuery.

Oops.

OK, so maybe the official Mtgox blog and official account and personal account never mention it. Here's an interview with McCaleb (http://ripple.com/blog/interview-with-jed-mccaleb-inventor-of-the-ripple-protocol-and-co-founder-of-opencoin/) which asks exactly the question we want to know:

Q. Ripple came out of your interest in Bitcoin. How did you become involved in Bitcoin?

A. I read that first Slashdot article (http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/11/1747245/Bitcoin-Releases-Version-03) about Bitcoin and thought the idea was awesome. I’ve always been interested in ways the internet can make people’s lives more free.

Q. How and why did you create Mt. Gox?

A. At that point there wasn’t a good way to buy and sell Bitcoins and I wanted to buy some. So, as a side project, I made Mt. Gox and bought my first Bitcoins there. As the company started to take off, I sold it.

Note what is completely unmentioned there: any evidence that Mt. Gox was made for any reason other than Bitcoins. If Mt Gox was an operating Magic card exchange, isn't that a really strange way to describe its history?

Conclusion

What happened was this: McCaleb was interested in card games, and thought he might write a Magic card exchange. He bought a domain name for like $8, put up a landing page to gauge interest, and eventually abandoned the project - perhaps there were minimal emails or traffic from potential users, perhaps the coding was more difficult than he expected, perhaps he became too busy with Far Wilds, whatever. His server lapsed, but he held onto the domain, maybe because he prepaid. When Far Wilds went public, he recycled the domain for documentation. Far Wilds has its own domain now (thefarwilds.com) and so perhaps to keep things consistent, he took down the mtgox.com site. Years later, he heard about Bitcoin, thought it was a great idea but a currency needed an exchange, and used a domain he had lying around. When people asked what 'mtgox' stood for, he explained the quirky origin of the domain name, which could be confirmed by checking the IA; as Mtgox became more popular and more people wondered what it stood for, the story gradually became corrupted from the complex true version "I bought it intending to set up a Magic card exchange" to the simpler "Mtgox was a card exchange", and from there on, people either repeated what they'd heard/read elsewhere or they cited the IA version and carelessly ignored how it specifically said the exchange was not yet functional and assumed it had been functional at some point.

So, I don't know what to say to anyone who isn't persuaded at this point. There's not a scrap of primary source evidence I've found after quite a bit of digging (the above is just the summary), even thought there should be tons of primary sources on it. It's all bald assertion or clear misinterpretation of an old landing page, given respectability by constant repetition and osmosis into trusted sources like Wikipedia.

Fortunately, this is not some distant historical problem. All the people involved are still alive. I've emailed McCaleb for a comment on this question: after all, he should know. --Gwern (contribs) 22:00 16 February 2014 (GMT)

So to update this. I discussed this with gmaxwell, a longtime Bitcoin developer, in IRC; he was skeptical of the claim Mtgox ever sold cards. Another user searched their 2010/2011 logs and found McCaleb did not seem to mention cards then. This topic has been discussed on Hacker News & Reddit.

More importantly, McCaleb replied to my email. In response to my question "Did anyone ever actually trade card for card or money for card on Mtgox.com?", he replied "yeah they did". I've asked him some followup questions on dates & volumes & closure reason, but I guess that settles that... Does anyone recall the OTRS procedure for storing emails from primary sources? It's been years since I've last done it. --Gwern (contribs) 20:36 17 February 2014 (GMT)

Excellent research. I did notice this recent Wall Street Journal article made the same claim: someone could ask the authors for their source, maybe point them to this article and talk page? As for sending primary emails to OTRS I've only done this once here in 2011, by forwarding the complete source to the OTRS email address. -84user (talk) 11:36, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

That's for permissions, though, this is more of a referencing or primary source issue... Perhaps I could treat it as a BLP problem and forward the emails to info-en-q@wikimedia.org  ? --Gwern (contribs) 23:39 24 February 2014 (GMT)

Alright, no one has offered any suggestions, nor have I received any replies to my request for advice on #wikipedia, and I've noticed that misleading versions of MtGox history are getting ever wider circulation online, so I am going to forward the emails to info-en-q@wikimedia.org and rewrite the article based on McCaleb's statements. --Gwern (contribs) 23:20 5 March 2014 (GMT)

Thanks Gwern, I appreciate your work on this; I think the reticence is due to widespread unfamiliarity with this procedure. Is the idea that the emails are eventually hosted on Wikimedia, where they can be cited in the article? Agyle (talk) 01:45, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Way I remember it, the idea was that one would be assigned a ticket number for the submitted emails, would cite that, and in case of any disputes, a user with OTRS privilege could check. --Gwern (contribs) 04:54 6 March 2014 (GMT)

Mt. Gox dead? Offline?

The lede, but not the whole article, has been changed from "is an exchange" to "was an exchange". This may be premature, but not improper; the latest Forbes article is titled "Once Mighty Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Is Offline, Likely Dead" [5]. So we do have a reliable source. We don't have to track this minute by minute; within 24 hours, we should have more solid info. Definitely a "current event" now, and edits should be made cautiously. People will be checking Wikipedia for info. --John Nagle (talk) 05:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

The New York Times has been heard from: "Apparent Theft at Mt. Gox Shakes Bitcoin World" [6]. John Nagle (talk) 05:54, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I backed out some of the more rumor-based items. Right now, there's very little information happening about what's really happening. Even the major news outlets like the WSJ and the New York Times admit they can't get any hard info out of Mt. Gox. There is a document floating around which is supposedly a "leaked reorganization plan" for Mt. Gox. The source for that is a Twitter feed. Some major outlets have noted the existence of that document, but none vouch for its authenticity. A lot of what's appearing in the press is rumor from other articles being re-echoed. The better news outlets are careful about attribution, but some blog-level ones are not.

All we know for sure is that 1) Mt. Gox's web site is off line, 2) Mt. Gox is refusing to talk to the press, and 3) the other major Bitcoin exchanges have issued a statement heavily criticizing Mt. Gox, and in an early revision of the statement, calling Mt. Gox "insolvent". This meagre info is echoing through the news system. So please stick to hard, verifiable facts for now. They're bad enough. And remember that Wikipedia doesn't really do breaking news. Thanks. --John Nagle (talk) 07:48, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

These are all impeccably-reliable sources, and are widely reporting that $350 million has been stolen. Wikipedia is not for breaking news, but removing well-sourced claims widely reported in major media smacks of trying to whitewash what is, by all appearances, a massive fraud. They are certainly more reliable sources than a primary-source blog of other exchanges claiming (without any evidence, really) that it's an isolated incident.

Your edit treated a press release from people profiting from Bitcoin as more important and reliable than major independent media reports. That's not on. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:00, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm concerned about GigaOm as a source, and placing too much reliance on that "leaked reorganization plan". The WSJ says of that "One document published by bitcoin entrepreneur Ryan Selkis, who blogs about bitcoin under the handle "The Two-Bit Idiot," and widely circulated online claimed that Mt. Gox had lost nearly 750,000 bitcoin as a result of theft over several years."[7]. Putting that in Wikipedia as "it was widely reported in major media that internal documents admit that nearly 750,000 bitcoins worth $350 million have been stolen or misappropriated from the exchange" indicates major media accepting that leaked document as factual. At least the WSJ and the NYT do not; they're careful to cite (and potentially blame) the source. Mt. Gox probably is dead, but the "theft" thing may be phony and may have been planted. John Nagle (talk) 08:19, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Just chiming in to respond to NorthBySouthBaranof concern of whitewashing. I've found John Nagle's edits to be even-handed, focusing on reporting of facts from reliable sources and advocating caution on breaking news. It might take a day or two for reliable sources to report confirmed facts rather than "suspected", "rumored", "apparent" or "possible" facts. In my experience he hasn't opposed additions once facts are established. The press release from bitcoin exchanges is cited merely to support the statement about that press release; I don't think there's any controversy over the what was written about it in the Wikipedia article. Agyle (talk) 08:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Your concerns regarding the wording are well-considered, and I've added the note that their provenance is unconfirmed at this point. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 09:18, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I removed the GigaOm cite as it simply wasn't needed, between coverage from Wired and NYTimes. The characterization of the leaked document by GigaOm and CoinDesk as authentic contrasted with that of Wired or the Times, illustrating how reliable sources that really have a reputation for fact-checking differ from their sometimes blog-like counterparts. John, while the leaked document may be a hoax, either way it's accurate to portray it as being of unconfirmed authenticity, and given its widespread coverage, it is relevant to coverage of the company. If it is confirmed as a hoax tomorrow, that's additional relevant information, but doesn't change what happened today. I touched up the paragraph, and the biggest doubt I have is characterizing the other exchanges as "distancing" themselves from Mt. Gox...I'd describe the statement as trying to reassure the market, but really we should rely on what a secondary source says about the press release rather than give personal impressions of a primary source. Agyle (talk) 10:06, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Update on covering "press release" from coinbase et. al: Reuters (among others) had an article about it, so I added that as a citation. It described it as distancing the companies from Mt. Gox, almost as if they cribbed it from this article. I left the press release citation itself up, but it's no longer needed to verify the information in this article. Agyle (talk) 11:52, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I removed the "closed" date in the Infobox, and changed past tense "Mt. Gox was..." back to present tense. John said it "may be premature, but not improper", based on Forbes article title "Once Mighty Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Is Offline, Likely Dead". I disagree that it's not improper. Likely dead is not dead. (I'm reminded of Billy Crystal, “There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.”) Giving a closed date and using the past tense are saying that the site/company/service is dead. All major news sources I've seen are still using the present tense to describe the company, and we should follow reliable sources, not exaggerate the claims of a single attention-grabbing headline. Agyle (talk) 12:11, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Also, I just looked at the Forbes article in question; its content is disavowed by Forbes: “The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.” Forbes is tricky that way. Agyle (talk) 13:08, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, everybody. Wikipedia is doing at least as well as the mainstream press today. There's enormous confusion and a lack of hard info. I'd be cautious about info based on that leaked "reorganization plan". That may be fake, either generated outside Mt. Gox or generated inside as disinformation. Some press outlets take it seriously, and some don't. It's from Twitter, after all. John Nagle (talk) 19:52, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Latest semi-significant event: the matter came up in the regular press conference of Japan's Chief Cabinet Minister Yoshihide Suga, who was quoted as saying "At this stage the relevant financial authorities, the police, the Finance Ministry and others are gathering information on the case,"[8]. No new info, but that's the #2 official in the Government of Japan talking, which means information will be gathered with little delay. John Nagle (talk) 04:25, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

There is some info on the document's legitimacy from FOXBusiness:

• Glass, Kathryn (25 February 2014). "Internet chat reveals Mt. Gox CEO hasn't 'given up'". FOXBusiness. FOX News Network, LLC.

I'm not sure if FOXBusiness, owned by FOX News Network, is a reliable source; I don't think I've heard of them before, though am familiar with sibling company Fox News. There's a Wikipedia article on what seems to be a different entity, which may or may not be related to the others, called Fox Business Network, owned by Fox Entertainment Group. According to FOXBusiness, Karpeles (CEO) was asked about the Crisis Strategy Draft being "legit" in IRC and answered "more or less", explaining that it wasn't produced by Mt. Gox, and that the draft included proposals, not actual plans. The implication seems to be that another company produced it for them, though neither Karpeles nor FOXBusiness say this. Does anyone know if FOXBusiness is careful to confirm facts (e.g., that it's Karpeles really said this)? A quick google shows stories about "Fox Business", "Fox Business Network", and "Fox Business Channel" confirming fabricated information as authentic, but those may refer to the entertainment company, not this (presumable) news company. Agyle (talk) 07:32, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Everything about that document should be attributed very carefully. Other than that, there's surprisingly little new hard news this morning. Mostly punditry and rumors. John Nagle (talk) 18:35, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd agree. Some sources are mentioning the IRC log but saying its authenticity is unconfirmed, while 2 normally legit papers treated FOXBusiness as reliable, the SCMP and the Financial Times. The Financial Times severely botched the details, so it should be ignored. Bloggy pseudonews sources with no reputation for fact checking, like The Verge and Engadget, seem to unanimously treat the IRC log as authentic, while careful sources, like regular NY Times articles, haven't even alluded to it. Agyle (talk) 13:45, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

The Verge is not "bloggy pseudonews" - it is a reliable source meeting our criteria for editorial oversight and fact-checking. Fox News/Fox Business, as much as I disagree with their politics, are also reliable sources for the same reason. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:11, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I confuse relatively new sources like The Verge; some very popular ones don't employ fact checkers. I'm familiar with Fox News, but FOXBusiness is separate, and seems distinct from Fox Business as well. The IRC log is posted on the blogger's site, but FOXBusiness didn't indicate how they confirmed it was authentic, or if they were just guessing. (The article said they tried and failed to reach Karpeles.) With the NY Times, aside from occasional mistakes, you can count on unverified information being attributed rather than stated as fact (e.g. "according to blogger..."). If you're sure FOXBusiness does the same, then the statements attributed to Karpeles should be treated as authentic. Agyle (talk) 02:06, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

MT GOX now has a statement

for a period of time the sites page source read they were going to put an announce of an acquisition. I need a valid source to prove this (Can anyone find an MSM that identified that.

1. put announce for mtgox acq here

Now the site just says In the event of recent news reports and the potential repercussions on MtGoxs operations and the market, a decision was taken to close all transactions for the time being in order to protect the site and our users. We will be closely monitoring the situation and will react accordingly. Best regards MtGox Team<

216.58.88.101 (talk) 15:55, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

usage of log scale is bias

The graph is using a log scale, which greatly hides the actual value changes, especially given the small size. There is no visible labeling indicating that it is a logarithmic scale when used in the main article. This should be using a plain 2 or 1 year median history instead.

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg730ztgMzm1g10zm2g25 http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg360ztgMzm1g10zm2g25

Typically, people argue the exact opposite: that non-log graphs are extremely misleading and grossly exaggerate fluctuations in periods with larger absolute values. --Gwern (contribs) 23:18 5 March 2014 (GMT)

Karpeles Article

Can someone link through to the Mark Karpeles article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Squirelewis (talk • contribs) 16:44, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

96.245.254.175 (talk) 03:19, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I just wikilinked the first occurrence of his name. Agyle (talk) 05:19, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

New York federal prosecutors subpoena

I just noticed that on 25 February the Wall Street Journal had reported here (behind a paywall) "Mt. Gox Receives Subpoena From Federal Prosecutor: Source". Reuters includes more or less the same content here. -84user (talk) 12:01, 28 February 2014 (UTC) CNBC has a little more detail: "the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was seeking information from businesses dealing in bitcoin to discover how they were dealing with the cyberattacks." -84user (talk) 12:13, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

"Theft" is just a rumor.

I changed the lede to point out that the alleged "theft" is just a rumor. There's a leaked document that may be faked and some comments on Internet Relay Chat behind it. That's all. The two cited articles actually say "Mt.Gox is blaming a costly computer hack for its current troubles. But in reality, the company was in dire financial straits long before that."[9] and "But simply allowing some bitcoins to be stolen through a bad implementation of the bitcoin protocol wouldn’t be enough to lead to the sort of collapse that MtGox has seen. That would also require serious lapses in how the company audited its accounts, and how it dealt with the discovery that it was in financial trouble."[10]. The bankruptcy court will have to sort this out. --John Nagle (talk) 19:01, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

"Were lost or stolen from the exchange's accounts" is OK. Whether it was an inside job or an outside job remains to be determined. --John Nagle (talk) 21:05, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Even Mt. Gox won't officially say they were stolen; officially they just say they're "missing". From bloomberg: “The company believes there is a high possibility that the Bitcoins were stolen,” Mt. Gox said in a statement. Reuters discussed some of the unconfirmed information in the leaked document, such as the loss of bitcoins from cold storage, but that's all speculation too. Agyle (talk) 02:47, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Tense

Please do not change to past tense unless (a) there's general agreement for it in Talk, (b) most other reliable sources are using past tense, or (c) you can cite a really reliable source that confirmed the service is closed on a permanent basis (e.g. The New York Times or Wall Street Journal)

The service is now closed on a permanent basis. Mt Gox has filed for bankruptcy, unless anyone has any objections I'll go ahead and change the tense. L32007 (talk) 13:52, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Mt. Gox is not in actual bankruptcy. They are in "civil rehabilitation" under Japanese law, which is a debtor in possession state roughly comparable to Chapter 11 in the US. There's a court-appointed overseer, but management hasn't been fired and the company is still allowed to operate. So Mt. Gox still exists as a business. Monday morning they open a "call center" for customer calls. --John Nagle (talk) 23:29, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

L32007, I object, and I reverted your changes. I wrote the advice you quoted, I still think it's reasonable, and I don't see why you ignored it. If the service permanently closed, cite a source. On the term “bankruptcy”, it's a Japanese case, and the actual legal terminology is going to be in Japanese, but it is widely reported as having “filed for bankruptcy” in US media (e.g. Reuters' Mt. Gox files for bankruptcy). A more detailed, nuanced explanation of their legal filing would be fine, but I don't think it's wrong to characterize it as “bankruptcy”. Agyle (talk) 04:19, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

It may still be a company, but it is definitely no longer an exchange. With the amount of money missing, it is highly unlikely that it will ever operate as an exchange ever again. Thus, whether it legally exists as a company or not, it is accurate to say that "Mt Gox was a bitcoin exchange..." 173.160.189.21 (talk) 21:28, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

If we wait about 30 days, the court will decide whether the "civil rehabilitation" proceeds or whether they move directly to bankruptcy. Patience. John Nagle (talk) 08:26, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Nagle, I agree that it'll all be clearer in time. But as to wording's tense, then the word "is" goes to the present (i.e. neither past nor future). Though I'm not sure that your "30 days" suggestion actually targets the use of "is" versus "was" (so we might not be in any disagreement at all).

173.160.189.21, you're stating your opinion as if it were a fact. Financial Times cites a presumed expert who says the civil rehabilitation filing suggests that third parties are interested in buying the service. Agyle (talk) 11:17, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Agyle, User 173.160.189.21 is spot on. Mt.Gox is no longer an exhange service, but may still legally be a company (at least for now).

Current owners of Mt. Gox are Mark Karpelès (88%) and Jed McCaleb (12%)

According to http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20140310-712183.html , posted on March 10, 2014, "Tibanne Co. Ltd., a Japanese company founded by Mr. Karpeles, owns 88% of the company. Mt. Gox's software developer, Jed MacCaleb, owns the remaining 12%."

50.74.152.2 (talk) 07:51, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect infobox?

I think the infobox should be the company infobox, not the exchange infobox, because Mt.Gox was not an exchange, it was a company running an online auction website. Bitcoin "exchanges" have very little in common with other financial exchanges. Danrok (talk) 19:13, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

As a casual reader, after browsing throughout the article, I went back to the introduction wishing to click on a wikilink over the word "exchange" (or maybe "Bitcoin exchange")... Bad luck it is not wikified, and as I could have expected, Exchange is a disambiguation page. This article has frustrated me : I have read (interesting) informations about various incidents which happened in the course of the life of this society, but did not at all get the answer to the question I had visited the article to find : what the heck was their job ? I have understood it had something to do with "bitcoins" but _what_ exactly - just delivering bitcoins against classical currencies and vice versa, or something else ? Of course if it is in no source, I understand it does not appear here, but it would be suprising. Touriste (talk) 15:37, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Further legal difficulties

Mt. Gox's legal problems are broadening. The Tokyo bankruptcy case suddenly went in a new direction when a creditor filed a petition noting that unexplained Bitcoin transactions were occurring on Mt. Gox accounts.[11] Former Mt. Gox employees are revealing details of problems several years old.[12]. The U.S. bankruptcy judge insists on Mark Karpeles personally appearing in Dallas for a deposition on April 17th if Mt. Gox is to get US bankruptcy protection.[13] Tokyo police and the bankruptcy supervisor are working to figure out where the money went.[14] --John Nagle (talk) 07:09, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange

re: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mt._Gox&diff=603600454&oldid=603492525

I would like to add the following to the lede:

Mt. Gox, an acronym for Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange,

Does anyone object or agree? 24.97.201.230 (talk) 03:08, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

References

Yes, I disagree. Did the site ever advertise itself as "Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange" during the period when it was notable (e.g. as a Bitcoin bank)? My understanding is no, and that it didn't even do any MTGO trading at all in that period. This is trivia about how the name was formed, and it's actively misleading for what the site ended up really being. *To be clear* I'm not saying it be taken out of the article - it should just be in the History section. Unless you think that detailed origin stories should be mentioned in the lede about, say, Kodak? That article's a good example - there's a rather famous name origin story there, but it's in the article itself, not in the lede, because it just isn't relevant enough. SnowFire (talk) 18:08, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Liquidation

Mt. Gox is going from "civil rehabilitation" to straight bankruptcy and liquidation.[15]. Right now there's just basic press coverage of that. Details in tomorrow's financial press, probably. --John Nagle (talk) 06:53, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

The language on liquidation could be clearer, and stronger. In the words of the provisional administrator appointed by the Tokyo bankrutpcy court, "The representative director of the Company has lost his authority to administer the Company’s assets pursuant to the order for provisional administration."[16] That means Karpeles was fired as CEO. With Karpeles out, employees and former employees are talking to the press.[17] John Nagle (talk) 06:53, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

While he may have been fired, it's not verifiable from either Kobayashi's FAQ (the cited PDF). The quote above doesn't identify the "representative director of the Company", though I'd guess that refers Karpeles. More importantly, it says the director lost the authority to administer assets, not that their positions within the company, as representative director or as CEO, were terminated; it still refers to him or her as representative director. There have been many news articles in mainstream newspapers about Karpeles since that was published; none say he was fired, and all refer to him as CEO, even while acknowledging his loss of control (Bloomberg 4/16, Economic Times 4/16, Forbes 4/16, WSJ 4/17, Toronto Sun 4/21, Reuters 4/21, Newsweek 4/21, CoinDesk 4/21), and the few reliable sources that identify him as former CEO did so well before the recent ruling (BizJournals 3/03, DailyTech 3/07, SFGate 3/21, CoinDesk 4/01). I'm removing the sentence on his being fired per WP:BLP ("Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page." "Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that is unsourced or poorly sourced; that is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see No original research); ...") Agyle (talk) 18:42, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Good points. Some of them were resolved in the latest statements from the Tokyo District Court and the bankruptcy trustee. The Tokyo District Court identified "Representative Director Robert Marie Mark Karpeles" in the court order of bankruptcy.[18] Now that there's a bankruptcy trustee, the old management has no power. From a law firm note on bankruptcy in Japan generally: "Under bankruptcy proceedings, the trustee in bankruptcy appointed by the court replaces the company’s directors and takes control of the company’s property."[19] Karpeles now has no authority. He is no longer a director of the company. The trustee has an office at Mt. Gox HQ and is in full charge now. The trustee has the authority to fire any employee, and eventually will fire all of them as part of liquidation. Whether Karpeles is still getting paid anything, or whether the trustee lets him in the building, is unknown at this time. John Nagle (talk) 04:58, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Crackers?

What's a cracker? Do you mean a hacker??? 71.139.169.186 (talk) 19:54, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

It wasn't my statement, and I just changed it to hacker as that seems more common, but yes, cracker means hacker, according to Mirriam-Webster. Agyle (talk) 18:56, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

legitimate edits reverted

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mt._Gox&diff=605170736&oldid=605161573

Why were my totally legitimate edits reverted? --24.97.201.230 (talk) 18:35, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

The reversion should have included a reason, but it seems due to the change contradicting the cited sources, and not providing any additional source to substantiate the statement. It's absolutely fine to add more names for the company, but they have to be verifiable in reliable published sources (see WP:Verifiability or WP:RS for more details). Agyle (talk) 18:48, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. My two changes were: 1) I wikified K.K. (to go to Kabushiki gaisha as that's what K.K. stands for) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mt._Gox&diff=605161447&oldid=605114677
2) moving the ) so that the source was outside of the brackets http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mt._Gox&diff=605161573&oldid=605161447

So I still don't know the reason that my edits were reverted (since I didn't make a statement and I don't see how either of my small edits are contradicting anything). --24.97.201.230 (talk) 19:06, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry. It looked like a bogus edit from an anon. "K.K." is roughly the Japanese equivalent of "Inc.", so it's not normally linked or expanded. John Nagle (talk) 20:19, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, okay. I wikilinked K.K. because I didn't know what K.K. meant, googled it and found that K.K. means, basically, "Inc." I thought other people may not know either. --24.97.201.230 (talk) 20:58, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

24.97.201.230, I misunderstood your edit in my earlier guessed explanation; the | symbol looks just like a lowercase L in the diff you linked, in my browser. :-) I restored your reference movement edit. Regarding wikilinking K.K., it seems like it would be less familiar than Inc. or Ltd. to most English language readers, but I'm not familiar with Wikipedia's convention on that. Agyle (talk) 21:07, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

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Fort Knox

Is it possible that the name was also designed to imitate the similarly financial Fort Knox? Cup o’ Java (talk • edits) 23:55, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

No - David Gerard (talk) 23:48, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Daily Beast

Good Lord: [20] Perhaps McCaleb did not get "bored" so much as "offloaded an exchange that already had an 80,000 BTC hole in the accounts" - David Gerard (talk) 23:48, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

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Paragraph about invalid addresses

"In October 2011, about two dozen transactions appeared in the block chain (Block 150951)[31] that sent a total of 2,609 BTC to invalid addresses. As no private key could ever be assigned to them, these bitcoins were effectively lost. While the standard client would check for such an error and reject the transactions, nodes on the network would not, exposing a weakness in the protocol."

What does this have to do with Mt. Gox? This belongs into the Bitcoin article if it's not there already. 87.93.10.0 (talk) 11:53, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

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WSJ Source

This [21] is a nice source from today's WSJ. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:36, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

MtGox book published

A new book has been published on the history of MtGox (Ultimate Catastrophe: How MtGox Lost Half a Billion Dollars and Nearly Killed Bitcoin, ISBN: 979-8858026471. I feel this should be added. 86.3.45.177 (talk) 17:26, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

It's a self-published book and without any significant coverage in independent sources shouldn't be mentioned in this article. This article's subject may be important to the subject of the book, but the book doesn't appear to be an important aspect of this article's subject. - Aoidh (talk) 02:26, 4 December 2023 (UTC)