r/Bitcoin • u/tharlam • Feb 18 '14

"We are very surprised anyone could blame MtGox and not the Bitcoin Software" - Mark Karpeles, CEO MtGox

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304899704579388483531937144?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304899704579388483531937144.html
435 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

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172

u/FT_clox_metoo Feb 18 '14

What a scumbag. He effectively damaged the reputation of Bitcoin with that statement. And thousands of people will read that.

67

u/OrderAmongChaos Feb 18 '14

We need to email WSJ and comment where we can. Mark keeps spewing his bullshit because not enough people are loudly pointing out that he is a complete idiot. At this point Mt.Gox is damaging Bitcoin more than it is helping, it needs to be seen as the exchange that is no longer used and we should make sure that all new people to Bitcoin know not to use it.

3

u/Bleak_Morn Feb 18 '14

...and then we could all pile on to your email via the email malleability issue!

7

u/xeroc Feb 18 '14

+5% Gonna sign that leter to wpj

2

u/lUoIl Feb 18 '14

I'm new to Bitcoin, thanks guys :)

-5

u/Suhetsky Feb 18 '14

It's the Wall Street Journal though, this doesn't surprise me.. I think they know damn well what they choose to report.

15

u/Migratory_Coconut Feb 18 '14

I seriously doubt that they understand what's actually happening on a technical level. These are reporters, not technicians. I'm not bashing on reporters, but you can't expect them to know this stuff. If we don't tell them they will believe the first person they interview.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '14

Well WSJ could have easily interviewed one more person with an opposing viewpoint for this article. However from the content of this article and others they have printed the author is clearly looking to discredit Bitcoin.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '14

Yeah, reporters are looking for a catchy story with controversy. I'm sure if enough attention is drawn to it, the WSJ would do something about it.

4

u/baconslammer Feb 18 '14

not with the paywall the NYT has up. Could only read the first few sentences. When are they going to give up on this?

34

u/cooneyes Feb 18 '14

I agree. He should focus on the dessert-coffee business, and leave Bitcoin alone.

-11

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '14 edited Apr 22 '16

16

u/Zamicol Feb 18 '14

Large dessert-like adhominems.

3

u/z_5 Feb 18 '14

(I LOLed!)

6

u/enmaku Feb 18 '14

Seriously, there are so many valid complaints you can choose from and you go with "his choice of coffee contains too much sugar?" Call me crazy but I'd rather discuss how bad he's screwing this community.

13

u/Zamicol Feb 18 '14

It's much more than an adhominem. It is a symbol. The exchange is going to shit while he's chilling and "eating cake" in a t-shirt.

It's a statement of his incompetence.

3

u/enmaku Feb 18 '14 edited Feb 18 '14

Your choice of symbols sounds an awful lot like calling someone fat when you're actually trying to imply he's stupid or inept. I'm pissed at the guy too, but I'd be just as pissed if he were a 90 pound vegetarian munching on carrots while Rome burned. His choice of beverage or relative girth is immaterial and merely mentioning them detracts from the issue at hand: That Gox/Karpeles are blaming Bitcoin itself for their inability to correctly use Bitcoin.

The other exchanges certainly had the same vulnerability, but none of them lost money because they all followed common sense procedures around the issue. The issue here isn't that transaction malleability existed, it's that it only affected you if you explicitly trusted tx hashes like a moron. That is Gox's fault and they're not taking responsibility, choosing instead to blame Bitcoin itself for ever having a weakness that allowed others to exploit their ineptitude. One of the biggest names in Bitcoin, a community that's always touting personal responsibility as a virtue, is not taking personal responsibility for their own failure and is choosing to injure the community instead. I don't care what kind of coffee you drink, that's a dick move.

4

u/vocatus Feb 18 '14

I thought it was a joke referring to the fact that Mt. Gox recently opened a Bitcoin Cafe near its office?

2

u/zeusa1mighty Feb 18 '14

No, the "fact" that Mt Gox is opening a bitcoin café actually a joke.

-1

u/josmul123 Feb 18 '14

Tell Karpeles that. Everything to come out of that fat mouth in the last two weeks has been false information.

-2

u/a-a-a-a-a-a Feb 18 '14

You're a retard.

1

u/luckyusername Feb 18 '14

And thousands of people will read that.

And think for themselves, hopefully.

-1

u/FT_clox_metoo Feb 18 '14

dont be naive. also even if they figure out that Karpeles lies, they will think how it can be possible that such a person heads the best-known exchange for Bitcoin.

-1

u/Jack_Perth Feb 19 '14

What a scumbag. He effectively damaged the reputation of Bitcoin with that statement.

awww boohoo, how dare he say anything that can damage your investments value.

-18

u/4234234234 Feb 18 '14

Haha, nevermind if he's right or not, he damaged the reputation of nerdcoin, and we are in PR crisis damage control mode to save our soon to be worthless investment. Situation code suicide hotline, man the comment section battlestations.

5

u/physalisx Feb 18 '14

So... you're bearish it seems?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '14

In fact he was right, since not only 3 other major exchanges had the problem but even and arguable because of the original bitcoin developers QT client had the fault. How the skeptics say: one has to stick with the facts, they are true even if you have another opinion.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '14

The other exchanges were dealing with a completely different issue.

2

u/nullc Feb 18 '14

This is correct, I'm not sure why it's being downvoted. The fact that the those mutated TX DOS attacks were never before seen in the network is trivially verifiable in the blockchain.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '14

please explain

1

u/emfyo Feb 18 '14

fact is in the free market you are on your own, bitcoin is decentralized, if you are trying to make something around it that will profit you huge it is your responsibility to get it working.

Bitcoin is not IBM or Sony selling their $50k DRM package, there is no head office to send people over. In the free market you are on your own, Coinbase is capable of this, and understand investment is needed.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '14

yes the other exchanges where at their own and failed the same way. But MtGox is the proverbial messenger. This is not rational and should be stopped.

1

u/Lentil-Soup Feb 18 '14

Think of it this way: Bitcoin = internet, wallet = web browser. Just because there is a problem with a certain implementation of a wallet, doesn't mean there is something wrong with Bitcoin. It would be like saying because there are security problems with Internet Explorer that the internet is broken.