"Whew, wondered where we'd put those 200,000 BTC!"

[Troy Benjegerdes]

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 08:20:02AM -0600, Kelly John Rose wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 11:25 PM, jim bell <jamesdbell9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> > http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/20/mt-gox-apparently-found-200-000-bitcoin-in-an-old-wallet-shoul/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000589
> >
> > "In a bit of news that's familiar to anyone who ever put on an old jacket
> > and found $20 in the pocket, embattled Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has made a
> > fortuitous discovery. The company announced (PDF)<https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20140320-btc-announce.pdf> in
> > Japan that it found 200,000 Bitcoin (worth nearly $116 million at the
> > moment) in a wallet from 2011 that it no longer used. That's less than a
> > quarter of the 850,000 Bitcoins CEO Mark Karpeles reported were missing,
> > but at the moment, at least it's something. According to its statement, the
> > coins were moved to online wallets on the 7th, and then to offline wallets
> > on the 14th and 15th. The mystery of what happened to Mt. Gox's funds<http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/11/mt-gox-us-assets-frozen/> is
> > still far from solved, but between this news and reports of updated balances
> > for account holders<http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/17/mt-gox-login-page-returns/>,
> > it seems possible that there's something to be recovered from the shuttered
> > exchange. Next up, removing all of the cushions from the sofa and pulling
> > it away from the wall."
> >
> >
> >
> If that doesn't inspire confidence in you, I don't know what will!
> 
> Honestly, I really wonder what would happen if some developers who
> understand financial cryptography and how banks properly work built a real
> bitcoin exchange. Considering how well it has done with incompetents like
> this, I'm betting a properly programmed and vetted system may be quite
> successful.
> 
> Too bad I don't have 200,000 BTC to do just that.

WTF, seriously... 

What crypto-nerds fail to understand is human-factors, and use-of-force,
because properly run BANKS call in guys with guns when money gets stolen,
and if it's stolen electronically, transactions get reversed.

If you think MtGox is incompetent, then show me the fucking code of a better
exchange, or shut the fuck up. If you think you need 'money' to build such
a thing, then you have even less of a grasp on the human factors than the
banks do on cryptographic secrets.

If you think you need 'money' to write a better exchange, then you are just
another crypto-snake-oil salesman, and are WORSE than Gox, who at least gave
us a good example of failure.

However, if you want to put your code (and failures) where your mouth is,
I'll give you free room and board if you show me good code, and an honest
effort to learn from failure. Nowhere in this exchange is money involved.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Troy Benjegerdes                 'da hozer'                  hozer at hozed.org
7 elements      earth::water::air::fire::mind::spirit::soul        grid.coop

      Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel,
         nor try buy a hacker who makes money by the megahash