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IMHO, this is a ruse. Only Gox knows if they are going under or not. By playing up the trend of bad news, they are forcing down the prices of Gox BTC which they can buy up at extremely generous prices.

The more they make it look like they are screwed, the cheaper people will sell. Thus they can keep this facade up for months. As long as they don't go under, they profit.

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It's also possible they're not doing this out of greed but as a way to actually rescue their company. They may owe a lot of money and the only way they can make it through this without going under is by buying all the bitcoin back at a low value. The question is, how far do they go, and how much of the retained earnings do they commit to rescuing the company and how much of these retained earnings have already found their way into individual executive bank accounts.

That's still dishonest if they hold other people's bitcoins hostage so they have no recourse but to sell them to Mt Gox at low value. Their customers are at their mercy, and they're taking full advantage of that.

That is an interesting thought, except they would have zero trust or goodwill left with the community. They might be able to rescue the company financially but I don't see any chance of the company surviving after that.

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