Mt. Gox Temporarily Suspends US Dollar Withdrawals

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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If you are one of the many invested in Bitcoin, withdrawals in US dollars have been suspended for the next two weeks at Mt. Gox. The exchange stated that improvements to the withdrawal system have facilitated the temporary suspension.

Over the past weeks Mt. Gox has experienced rising volumes of deposits and withdrawals from established and upcoming markets interested in Bitcoin. This increased volume has made it difficult for our bank to process the transactions smoothly and within a timely manner, which has created unnecessary delays for our global customers. This is especially so for those in the United States who are requesting wire transfer withdrawals from their accounts.
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Uh oh. Normally when a company restricts outflow, they are either under-capitalized, or belt tightening.

But they seldom tell the truth when it happens. "Server crash", "Updating", "Restructuring", "New equipment", etc.
 
Qinsp said:
Uh oh. Normally when a company restricts outflow, they are either under-capitalized, or belt tightening.

But they seldom tell the truth when it happens. "Server crash", "Updating", "Restructuring", "New equipment", etc.
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Funny enough there was quite a long post on their facebook page yesterday detailing many of those points you hit at the end.

During the latest crash of bitcoin down into the $60 range, their trading engine was over run. Even now there can be considerable lag times during hot periods of activity. I've read multiple accounts about they are doing so much volume of business with banks on their side...it was difficult for the banks to provide the level of service that's needed on their scale. So I can understand why they might need a cooling off period and a way to rework their system on the banking side such that things are smoother.

Additionally - word is they are bringing a litecoin trading engine online within a month's time which would rock the crypto currency world quite well.

All in all I don't think anything negative will happen - I don't keep any of my money (cash/bitcoins/litecoins) on Mt.Gox anyway so *shrugs*

If you are handlign 80% of the world's bitcoin traffic -- I think you are allowed to come down once in your life for a major overhaul.
 
They don't handle 80% anymore. I'd have to read up on it a little more on somewhere other than Facebook (since I deleted facebook), but it sounds like a depression era bank scheme.
 
collegeboy69us said:
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If you are handlign 80% of the world's bitcoin traffic -- I think you are allowed to come down once in your life for a major overhaul.
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If you were running a large business that did everything on the internet, would you let a 2 week downtime happen? Normally, you get the new system in place, test it, then shut down long enough to swap and test, then come back up. Seldom more than 24 hours.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Eighty percent? So that's like thirty people! :eek:
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You can joke all you want, but on average there are 20000 BTC changing hands per day @ ~$105 a pop at MtGox. $2.1 million per day isn't exactly a small number, especially when you multiply by 365 days a year and suddenly you're in the $766 million range.
 
That's about 7 Walmart stores worth of daily sales. Since there are 9000 of them, it's hard to judge if $2.1m/day is a lot.
 
Qinsp said:
That's about 7 Walmart stores worth of daily sales. Since there are 9000 of them, it's hard to judge if $2.1m/day is a lot.
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Walmart also has billions of dollars in inventory and has the largest sales numbers of any corporation on the planet. Your comparison is so borderline foolish that you must just be trolling.

I'm not defending BTC or cryptos...just saying that it's an impressive dollar amount and when an exchange or whatever you want to call MtGox is, fails to pay out in dollars for 2 weeks, it's a big deal.
 
Won't the problem be even worse in two weeks when everyone tries to cash out at the same time?
 
There are a few other ways of cashing out your bitcoins -- I know BTC-E has a few options.

I don't really deal in bitcoins so I'm not familiar with the best way to get them out these days. I used to do Gox-Dwolla-MyBank.

If they stop conversion or withdraws of cash for 2 weeks, there are other places that can pick up the slack or who might have a chance to steal some of Gox's thunder.

The whole thing is a non-issue to me because anyone whos seriously into crypto doesn't keep all their coins in one basket (or even online to begin with)
 
The reality is that Mt. Gox simply doesn't have the cash to pay out the people who want to cash out their bitcoins. Doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure that one out.
 
Considering they had their accounts in the US seized about a month ago, I'm pretty sure they are having money issues along with finding banks that will work with them after the seizures.
 
kirbyrj said:
Walmart also has billions of dollars in inventory and has the largest sales numbers of any corporation on the planet. Your comparison is so borderline foolish that you must just be trolling.

I'm not defending BTC or cryptos...just saying that it's an impressive dollar amount and when an exchange or whatever you want to call MtGox is, fails to pay out in dollars for 2 weeks, it's a big deal.
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The GNP of just the US is over 15,000,000,000,000. Walmart worldwide is 490,000,000,000.

So 15 trillion versus a half trillion.

So the comparison of a small handful of department stores versus the largest Bitcoin brokerage just shows how puny Bitcoin really is, in the grand scheme of things. If Bitcoin folded, it would even show a blip on the radar. It's a stealth currency I guess.

If Mt. Gox can't pay their bills, the best tactic to let the currency collapse.

If I have to pay you 1,000 bitcoins, it's much easier if they are $1 each.
 
kirbyrj said:
You can joke all you want, but on average there are 20000 BTC changing hands per day @ ~$105 a pop at MtGox. $2.1 million per day isn't exactly a small number, especially when you multiply by 365 days a year and suddenly you're in the $766 million range.
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Soooo, I'm gonna give you 20000 super deluxeified balls of dirty socks, each worth $110 (which is the number I just randomly decided that one would be worth today) and then we pass them back and forth between two people at least once a day and now we're magically exchanging $766 million actual dollars? :eek: That's the most awesome thing we've made up in the forums since like...I dunno, yesterday!
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Soooo, I'm gonna give you 20000 super deluxeified balls of dirty socks, each worth $110 (which is the number I just randomly decided that one would be worth today) and then we pass them back and forth between two people at least once a day and now we're magically exchanging $766 million actual dollars? :eek: That's the most awesome thing we've made up in the forums since like...I dunno, yesterday!
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I said I wasn't defending crypto currencies...I was just pointint out that they do $766 million in "business" a year which is a significant chunk of money.
 
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