Mt. Gox is offline.

[randomness]

Remember Mt. Gox?

Wait, what do you mean "remember"?

Seems they've gone offline.

From a CNET story:

Embattled Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has largely vanished from the Internet amid accusations that the exchange is insolvent after a years-long theft that resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Web site for the Tokyo-based exchange has been wiped clean, as has its official Twitter feed. A screen shot posted by a Reddit user indicates that trading on the exchange has been halted.


The exchange's apparent shutdown was linked to an alleged hacking that went unnoticed for years, according to a purported internal Mt. Gox document circulating on the Internet. Labeled "Crisis strategy draft," the document reports that the exchange suffered a loss of 744,000 Bitcoins, about $350 million at Monday's trading, and outlines a scheme for restoring confidence in the exchange.

Comments

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Not related to Mt. Gox, but this reminds me that the other day I heard that there is now a Bitcoin ATM at South Station. And you can use Bitcoin to pay for tasty food at Thelonious Monkfish in Central Square. I almost want to get maybe $30-40 worth of Bitcoin just to buy dinner there and say I did it. :)

[a-dodecahedron.livejournal.com]

Mt. Gox, AKA Magic: The Gathering Online eXchange.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

But what will the Magic players do now?!?

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

There's a bitcoin meetup in a cafe in Holyoke MA now. That about blew my mind-- we're a city of 40K people, in a valley with a share of geeks, but I still wouldn't have expected a bitcoin meetup in our town. (It's at the best coffee shop, too, which is how I stumbled upon it.)

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I'm imagining it now: Twitch Trades Bitcoin.

sell
sell
anarchy
sell
democracy
anarchy
buy
anarchy
hot grits
anarchy

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

It's pretty simple: The final stage of an asset bubble is when the experienced insiders realize that the only hope of escaping with the current paper value of their stuff is to sell it to the greatest fool, the inexperienced outsider who piles into a market bubble at the end. "The Rockefellers have sold Rockefeller Center three times in the last century, and each time have bought it back at a lower price." The Bitcoin ATM is all the evidence you need that you don't want to own the things.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

So at least someone got out the door with their money intact. It just wasn't the investors...

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

When I posted about this before, cerebralpaladin commented:

Of course, the difference between MtG cards and Bitcoins is that MtG cards have a small amount of intrinsic value... :)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Point and laugh at the speculative frenzy that surrounds bitcoins, as opposed to the sedate market in Magic: the Gathering cards? :)

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

The best part—better than even the fact that the hack went unnoticed for years—was that the "scheme for restoring confidence" basically involved begging people with lots of coins to put them into Mt.Gox anyway, because community or something.

[a-dodecahedron.livejournal.com]

Ha!

[a-dodecahedron.livejournal.com]

Ha!

Isn't a stock exchange basically Twitch plays money? That's a scary thought.

[a-dodecahedron.livejournal.com]

How could this have happened? Bitcoin is free of politics and human error. At least that's what the Winklevii told me.

[drwex]

Yes, this, exactly.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Scary, and yet strangely comforting, because then you can say "aww these dumbfucks don't really know anything better than anything else."

Fonz would make a great Fed Chair, wouldn't he? SAVE US BIRD JESUS!

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Well said, CP, five points to Gryffindor.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Have you been up on the whole Twitch Plays Pokemon phenomenon? It is simultaneously stupidly ridiculous, and strangely fascinating. At least if have some passing literacy in Pokemon.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

"Pull our fingers." -The Winklevii

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

*snork*

[cerebralpaladin.livejournal.com]

My big question is how many of these crises Bitcoin can take before the whole thing collapses. I mean, I understand that people have a lot invested in the idea of Bitcoins (mostly mental commitment, but also lots of money), but how many BitInstant/Mt Gox/Silk Road/Sheep Marketplace massive thefts/losses/seizures/whatevers of Bitcoins can happen before people give up on the idea? Once people realize that they can't trust any of the Bitcoin markets, I don't think Bitcoin can survive. There isn't enough actual peer-to-peer use for it to work, as best as I can tell. So is this the time when it goes to functionally equivalent to 0? Or does it take a beating, stagger on, and then take another beating when the next scandal hits?