• Forum Think Finance - Bolsa e Forex »
• Perfil de btcmb »
• Mostrar Mensagens »
• Mensagens

Mais uma teoria sobre o que eventualmente aconteceu no caso Mt. Gox, em todo o caso muito próxima da teoria que eu tenho...

Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox


TL/DR: A young man had a secret.  To keep it hidden, he kept digging until the hole was a billion dollars deep.  This is a speculative tale of a great bitcoin theft from MtGox in 2011 and the efforts that this man undertook to fix it.  The tale explains the bitcoin bear market of 2011, the explosive rally of 2013, delayed fiat withdrawals, malled transactions, and a bot named Willy.


“By the time you realize that real life has begun, you are already three moves in.”—Author unknown


It was June 19, 2011.  Mark, a 26 year-old young man—a boy really—was ecstatic.  He had recently purchased MtGox—a small, online exchange for trading virtual tokens—and business was booming.   These virtual tokens were called bitcoins and Mark loved them. 

Bitcoins were an obscure curiosity: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that allowed users to store and exchange credits with any other user in the world, nearly instantly, and without the assistance of a third-party or the permission of an authority.   All that was needed was a 78-digit secret number—a key if you will.

In order for his customers to withdraw their bitcoins over the internet, MtGox stored some of these keys on its online server.   The remaining keys were stored on USB drives and backed up on paper to prevent theft should the server be compromised. 

But theft was hardly a concern.  In October of 2010, bitcoins were trading for $0.10 and the half a million bitcoins held by MtGox was worth only $50,000.   But still Mark took precautions, diligently moving bitcoins to offline storage and leaving only what was necessary for customer withdrawals online.   He truly wanted both his business and bitcoin to succeed. 

By April, the bitcoin price had risen to $1 and by June it had exploded to $30.  Between June 1 and June 15, an additional one million bitcoins were sent to MtGox and immediately sold, crashing the price back to $10.  It was a hectic time, with hundreds of customers needing help, visits from the FBI related to the Silk Road black market, and stress related to the recent market crash.  Young Mark was becoming a victim of his own success: there simply wasn’t enough time to get everything done.  On this very day in June 2011, the keys to the recently-deposited 1,000,000 BTC were still sitting on his server. 

Later this day, a group of hackers gained access to MtGox servers and executed fake trades that the world could see, driving the nominal price of bitcoin near $0.  Mark was frantic.  He quickly regained control of the servers and learned the dark truth: the million bitcoins that had recently flooded in earlier that month were gone.  Mark admitted publically to the hack, rewound the false trades, but kept the truth of the missing coins a secret. 

How could this 26-year old explain to his customers that he had lost their bitcoins?  And if the world found out, would this kill the thing he loved so dearly?  Would he go to jail?  Or worse yet, would someone kill him?  Mark decided that he would do what he thought was right: he would slowly earn back the lost bitcoin with MtGox trading fee profits and eventually make his customers whole again.  He still had over 500,000 BTC left—he moved 424242.42424242 BTC between bitcoin addresses and convinced the community that MtGox was solvent.  As long as withdrawals didn’t exceed deposits over a long period of time, no one would ever find out the truth.  Or so he thought.

Meanwhile, the bitcoin thieves slowly mixed their coins with other coins, obfuscating the chain of ownership, and then re-selling these coins on MtGox using sock-puppet accounts.  Mark tried to stop them, but there was no way he could know for sure which accounts were fraudulent—he even accused innocent people of bitcoin laundering.  The constant selling of these stolen bitcoins drove the price down to $2 in November 2011.  Mark faithfully used all of the MtGox profits to purchase coins back during this decline.  But he would never use customer funds—that was a line he swore not to cross. 

The selling of these stolen bitcoins continued at a diminished rate over 2012, and Mark continually purchased coins using the MtGox trading fees.  The bitcoin economy was growing and new exchanges were opening up across the world.  His bitcoin reserves weren’t building fast enough but the price of bitcoin kept rising (along with the dollar value of the missing bitcoins).  He was worried that other exchanges would suck coins out of Gox and reveal his secret.  He decided he needed to take decisive action: for the first time, he used customer funds to purchase real bitcoins.  These large purchases by Mark further increased demand and ignited the great rally of spring 2013 when the bitcoin price shot from $20 to $266.  Mark had reduced his liability in bitcoins, but in dollar terms the coins that were still missing were worth more than ever before. 

On May 15, 2013 the US Department of Homeland Security seized millions of dollars from the MtGox Dwolla bank account. MtGox dollar reserves were already depleted at this point, and with the recent seizure, Mark could no longer make good on customer withdrawals in US dollars. 

Under the guise of “banking problems,” MtGox slowed US dollar withdrawals to a trickle in the summer of 2013.   Customers became increasingly worried and began to bid up the price of bitcoin on MtGox, as this was the only way to escape with their funds. MtGox had little fiat and very little bitcoins, but it learned one thing: as the price differential between Gox and BitStamp grew, the outwards flow of bitcoin slowed dramatically. 

And so Willy was born.  Willy was a bot, discovered by Wall Observers from bitcointalk.org and named by Opet on Bonavest's trading show, who would consistently purchased bitcoins at regular intervals between November 2013 and February 2014.  Evidence that Willy belonged to Mark was revealed when both web and API trading at Gox was disabled for a brief period of time, exposing Willy as the only one left buying. 

Willy served two purposes: he drove the price of bitcoin on the MtGox exchange high, thereby slowing and sometimes reversing the outward flow of real BTC, and he reduced the number of GoxBTC held by clients.  Of course, this meant that Willy eventually became the owner of a huge number of GoxBTC (that were of course no longer backed by real BTC). 

By December, the situation at MtGox was grim.  In a desperate attempt to attract more funds, Mark offered reduced trading fees under the guise of celebrating their 1,000,000th customer.  This partially worked, but Mark knew it was too late.  If MtGox collapsed, it must appear that he didn’t know about the theft until now—for it was better to appear incompetent than criminal. 

It was time to cover his tracks.

He purposely mixed immature coins into bitcoin withdrawals to delay the outward flow of coins, and later began malling his own transactions.  He added the Gox malleability weakness not as a bug, but as a feature, so that it would seem plausible that outsiders had recently stolen the coins without his awareness.   No coins were actually lost to malleability. 

The MtGox coin supply dwindled to 2,000 BTC and on February 7, 2014 he had no choice but to disable bitcoin withdrawals.   The end was near. 

The problem Mark faced was that his customers had $150,000,000 credited to their accounts, yet the MtGox bank account only contained $38,000,000.  He could blame the missing bitcoins on transaction malleability, but how could he explain where the fiat money went?

He shifted Willy into reverse and cranked the throttle.  Willy relentlessly dumped bitcoins into the open bids.  The price fell further and further, eventually dropping well below the BitStamp price.  But still not enough people were buying!  He needed his customers to buy the GoxBTC.  Willy kept dumping coins until finally the price dropped below $100.  MtGox even acquired new USD bank wires from customers looking to purchase the cheap coins.   By this time, the majority of Gox customers had converted their dollars into bitcoins. 

On February 28, 2014, Mt Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo, reporting 6.5 billion yen in liabilities, 3.8 billion yen in assets, and 750,000 of customer bitcoins missing.  Willy had failed to completely close the fiat solvency gap and Mark finally admitted to having lost the coins.

Now we watch the rest of the story unfold.  A story of how an oversight during a hectic period, an untimely theft, and an attempt to cover it up, lead to the greatest loss in the history of bitcoin. 

Eu tenho uma teoria um bocado rebuscada...

Muito provavelmente tudo começou com roubo de Bitcoins e parece fazer sentido que eles tenham tentado mitigar a coisa de forma a saírem com algum no bolso...

O que pode ter ditado a derrocada antecipada foi a queda de preço, o que de certo fez com que muitos depósitos em BTC tivessem sido convertidos para USD.

Se ainda se recordam, o preço dos Bitcoins no Mt. Gox era sempre mais elevado que em outro lado qualquer. Era quase de caras alguém tentar ganhar dinheiro com a arbitragem, comprando em outro sitio e vendendo no Mt. Gox, fazendo lucro sem correr qualquer risco.

A mim parece-me que o Mt. Gox tenha tentado mitigar a coisa com a ilusão da possibilidade de ganhar $ fazendo arbitragem, tendo o Mt. Gox como destino final e a consequente saída de Bitcoins para Moeda Fiat. O problema era que a conversão para Fiat no Mt. Gox estava a demorar largas semanas o que fazia com que não fosse muito apetecível fazer levantamentos, no entanto entravam grandes quantidades de Bitcoins para o Mt. Gox, pois era o exchange que pagava mais... essas Bitcoins acabavam por ir ficando lá depositadas... enquanto o preço estivesse a subir, não iriam haver muitas conversões de BTC para USD...

Pode-se especular que esta estratégia de acumulação de Bitcoins por parte do Mt. Gox tenha sido a estratégia de saída... do ponto de vista legal, os Bitcoins não são a mesma coisa que $. Muito provavelmente pode ter havido um roubo inicial, mas o grande roubo, muito provavelmente foi feito com a conivência de responsáveis do Mt. Gox.... mesmo o uso do problema da maleabilidade em transações entre endereços na mesma carteira é um bocado estranha, pois já era um problema conhecido há anos... talvez tenha sido a forma que arranjaram para estancar as conversões de BTC para USD e consequente levantamento de dinheiro que eles não tinham...

Apenas uma teoria... pura especulação... pode ser que no futuro se saiba mais alguma coisa do que realmente se passou... 



Parece que o mesmo se aplica a quem tem bancos de Bitcoin... e não é necessário ser assim, uma vez que uma das inovações do Bitcoin é cada pessoa poder ser o seu banco, guardando os Bitcoins ela mesma...

Este vídeo já mostra o outro lado, com os manifestantes armados a carregarem na forças policiais... uma autêntica guerra civil...

Ukraine and Venezuela Coloured Revolutions

Uma guerra civil no sec. 21. As imagens são impressionantes e tristes...

Full Scale Civil War in the Ukraine (Kiev) 20 02 2014

Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App, http://blog.textit.in/your-path-to-a-$16b-exit-build-a-j2me-app

Larger economic event coming

Como é que se pode ter confiança numa moeda se a própria segurança da guarda da mesma depende de detalhes técnicos tão complexos que para os entender é preciso tirar um curso intensivo de software especializado e TI especializada e se há perdas com avarias ou vírus ou piratas informáticos?

Boas Kin2010,

Sim, é verdade que o Bitcoin pode ser extremamente complexo quando se olha para o aspeto técnico, sendo de código aberto e no tema(dinheiro) é quase inevitável que assim o seja. A segurança também tem sido um problema grave, houveram muitíssimos episódios de roubos, inclusivamente empresas que faliram devido a esses roubos.

No entanto o Bitcoin neste momento ainda é uma versão beta. Se isto fosse há uns anos(belos) atrás, certamente que ainda não estaria no mercado dada a sua imaturidade. No entanto as coisas hoje em dia são feitas assim(mal)...

Voltando à segurança e dificuldade em usar... pode ser difícil e perigoso para quem corre um servidor de pagamentos Bitcoin, para o utilizador final é bastante simples, para começar a usar basta isto, http://btcmb.pt/tutoriais-bitcoin/como-obter-um-endereco-bitcoin/

Tem estado a haver um ataque concertado a vários exchanges, http://www.coindesk.com/massive-concerted-attack-launched-bitcoin-exchanges/

Há informação demais a circular... mas ao que parece há um exploit que tem estado a ser usado contra os exchanges, nomeadamente nas transações. É difícil de explicar o exploit... o mesmo baseia-se no aproveitamento de transações que trazem lixo agarrado nas chaves, por exemplo...

2 + 5 = 7

ou(versão com lixo)

2 + 5 + 0 = 7

O que se diz é que os exchanges estariam a pagar em duplicado(a quem usasse o exploit) devido a algo como isto... as contas de somar equivalem a chaves no bitcoin... não consigo adiantar muito mais, até porque é difícil devido ao excesso de informação...

Já houve outra comunicação oficial por parte da Mt Gox, deixo-a aqui:

Dear MtGox Customers and Bitcoiners,

As you are aware, the MtGox team has been working hard to address an issue with the way that bitcoin withdrawals are processed. By "bitcoin withdrawal" we are referring to transactions from a MtGox bitcoin wallet to an external bitcoin address. Bitcoin transactions to any MtGox bitcoin address, and currency withdrawals (Yen, Euro, etc) are not affected by this issue.

The problem we have identified is not limited to MtGox, and affects all transactions where Bitcoins are being sent to a third party. We believe that the changes required for addressing this issue will be positive over the long term for the whole community. As a result we took the necessary action of suspending bitcoin withdrawals until this technical issue has been resolved.


Addressing Transaction Malleability
MtGox has detected unusual activity on its Bitcoin wallets and performed investigations during the past weeks. This confirmed the presence of transactions which need to be examined more closely.


Non-technical Explanation:
A bug in the bitcoin software makes it possible for someone to use the Bitcoin network to alter transaction details to make it seem like a sending of bitcoins to a bitcoin wallet did not occur when in fact it did occur. Since the transaction appears as if it has not proceeded correctly, the bitcoins may be resent. MtGox is working with the Bitcoin core development team and others to mitigate this issue.


Technical Explanation:
Bitcoin transactions are subject to a design issue that has been largely ignored, while known to at least a part of the Bitcoin core developers and mentioned on the BitcoinTalk forums. This defect, known as "transaction malleability" makes it possible for a third party to alter the hash of any freshly issued transaction without invalidating the signature, hence resulting in a similar transaction under a different hash. Of course only one of the two transactions can be validated. However, if the party who altered the transaction is fast enough, for example with a direct connection to different mining pools, or has even a small amount of mining power, it can easily cause the transaction hash alteration to be committed to the blockchain.

The bitcoin api "sendtoaddress" broadly used to send bitcoins to a given bitcoin address will return a transaction hash as a way to track the transaction's insertion in the blockchain.
Most wallet and exchange services will keep a record of this said hash in order to be able to respond to users should they inquire about their transaction. It is likely that these services will assume the transaction was not sent if it doesn't appear in the blockchain with the original hash and have currently no means to recognize the alternative transactions as theirs in an efficient way.

This means that an individual could request bitcoins from an exchange or wallet service, alter the resulting transaction's hash before inclusion in the blockchain, then contact the issuing service while claiming the transaction did not proceed. If the alteration fails, the user can simply send the bitcoins back and try again until successful.

We believe this can be addressed by using a different hash for transaction tracking purposes. While the network will continue to use the current hash for the purpose of inclusion in each block's Merkle Tree, the new hash's purpose will be to track a given transaction and can be computed and indexed by hashing the exact signed string via SHA256 (in the same way transactions are currently hashed).

This new transaction hash will allow signing parties to keep track of any transaction they have signed and can easily be computed, even for past transactions.

We have discussed this solution with the Bitcoin core developers and will allow Bitcoin withdrawals again once it has been approved and standardized.

In the meantime, exchanges and wallet services - and any service sending coins directly to third parties - should be extremely careful with anyone claiming their transaction did not go through.

Note that this will also affect any other crypto-currency using the same transaction scheme as Bitcoin.


Conclusion
To put things in perspective, it's important to remember that Bitcoin is a very new technology and still very much in its early stages. What MtGox and the Bitcoin community have experienced in the past year has been an incredible and exciting challenge, and there is still much to do to further improve.

MtGox will resume bitcoin withdrawals to outside wallets once the issue outlined above has been properly addressed in a manner that will best serve our customers.

More information on the status of this issue will be released as soon as possible.

We thank you for taking the time to read this, and especially for your patience.

Best Regards,
MtGox Team

Ainda não se sabe muito bem o que se está a passar com o principal exchange de bitcoin.

Na pior das hipóteses poderá estar insolvente... Há já uns dias que o Mt. Gox não está a fazer withdrawals em bitcoins, e já há uns meses que havia dificuldade em retirar de lá $ ou €

In the bigger picture, I don't understand why people are surprised. There have been warning signs for years.

First, they were a playing cards exchange that jumped ship to get into this later as an after thought because it was more profitable for them.

Second, lets go back to 2011, when an auditor's account was hacked and 2000 BTC were stolen.

Third, openly manipulating the market by simply shutting down their exchange for a "cooldown" period. TWICE!

Fourth, this is not new. They have been having problems since mid 2013. Such as being sued for $75 million dollars by CoinLab and US Feds seizing $5 million in assets because they were not registered in the US as money transmitters back in May, suspending USD withdrawals in June, USD withdrawals not working when they resumed in July, a claim of massive losses in August from crediting deposits before they actually cleared. The buffer they had ran out, and now we're at where we're at.

Fifth is that their exchange rate has always been so much higher than that of all the other exchanges which more or less tracked around the same level. Now, yes, there can be variance in exchange rates dependent on local currency value and exchange volume and other such factors, but it never really did make sense that their exchange alone consistently was 20%+ better than everyone else. It always smelled of price manipulation, but most users never bothered to care because it worked in their favor, or so they thought. There is a saying: "If it seems to good to be true, it probably is!"


So whats happening now? USD withdrawals were never fixed, only got worse and effecting other fiat's too. Insolvent with millions of dollars missing. Their CEO has disappeared as of yesterday. And now BTC withdrawals are suspended. Technical issues? Yeah right. BTC was the only thing of value MtGox possessed, and that was quickly going away as everyone started buying/withdrawing coins since they couldn't get their fiat out, so of course they shut that off.

I'm sorry that a lot of people got and will get screwed. But the writing has been on the wall for a while. They are an inexperienced and shady exchange and always have been. But too many people were (and some still are, I think) in denial of this.

Está a chegar a isto, http://en.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1x9gue/my_protest_at_mtgox_offices_5_to_7th_february/