Poll: How many bitcoins have you lost with MtGox shutdown? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: How many bitcoins have you lost with MtGox shutdown?

56 pointsk-i-m34 comments

If you only had credit and no bitcoins, estimate the number of bitcoins you'd have been able to buy at the last known price (1 BTC = $135)

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I'd be more interested in how many of those who lost (or rather, will lose if MtGox does indeed die) cannot easily afford it. 8 people so far, for instance, have said they lost more than 1000 BTC, which would be over $600k.

I wonder how many of these fall into the following categories:

1. The mined the coins themselves back when it was cheap to mine, or bought them when they are cheap. They are not actually much worse off then before they got into Bitcoin.

2. They put a lot of money into acquiring those Bitcoins. They are going to actually end up a significant fraction of that $600k worse of than when they started. However, they have millions of dollars or dollar equivalents elsewhere, and this loss is not really going to impact their lifestyle in any noticeable way.

3. They put a lot of money into acquiring those Bitcoins, and are going to end up a significant fraction of that $600k behind where they started. That represents a significant fraction of their wealth, and it will impact future plans to live a more extravagant lifestyle, but it won't knock them down to a lower class. They'll keep living where they live, and buying the same kind of luxuries they currently buy.

4. Similar to 2 and 3, but they had most of their wealth in this. They may have to move down a class or two on the social/financial ladder.

5. Similar, but they had so much of their wealth in this that "ruined" would be an accurate description. They basically have to start over financially.

6. They are trolls that just hit the maximum option.

0. It wasn't luck. Who keeps their money in an exchange?

Really, especially with btc where keeping it local is literally just getting the blockchain and sitting on wallet backups.

Also, who in the world would invest money on MtGox after the repeated bullcrap incompetence out of them since 2011? They have never had a good month of operation.

People who can't manage to withdraw it when MtGox makes it painfully long and impossible to move things around.

In mid October before the huge rise in value, I started a USD withdrawal of $2700 to my american bank account and despite repeated emails claiming that the bank transfer process was simply delayed, it has never come through.

Luckily I only lost $500 in this grand btc experiment since most of that value was gained through trading

was there no way of just transferring bitcoins to yourself?

I could have, I just wanted to cash out back then. Once I got that ball rolling however I was unable to reverse it.

It's hard for me to understand why anyone would have kept any money in any form in Gox. The signs of a poorly run institution have been there for the better part of the past 10 months. As soon as I read about the US Government seizing their US Bank account last May and the suspension of Dwolla for USD transfers I got out of there ASAP and never contemplated going back. With the rise of Bitstamp and Coinbase plus the other players there was just no reason to go anywhere near Gox any more.

There's also no reason to keep BTC or USD at any exchange for more than the time it takes to make a trade, unless you're arbing between exchanges (in which case this type of event does suck but should have been priced into your whole strategy). Mt gox was an exchange not a bank.

I got out of Gox in 2011 when they were hacked the first time and never looked back...

I gambled and used another even less reputable exchange that has not as of yet stolen my money! Woot! Ask me next week.

Same here! Good luck. So far these guys seem good but they did formerly offer to clear trades via gox. Hope that hasn't bitten them too badly.

Are you keeping a significant amount of BTC in an exchange? If so, why? I would expect a HN reader to know how to manage his/her bitcoins.

Yeah, not much.

Stop leaving money in the exchange (they aren't a bank)! That's what your wallet is for!

I have serious doubts that the people reporting 1k+ are honest...

I have serious doubts that any of the results are honest. Previous polls have never been real.

I started mining bitcoin years ago; this sounds awfully "hipster", but it was still a relatively new, unheard of thing. I had no clue what I was doing, and mined 1 BTC. I lost it when I lost that hard drive; it took me until a year or so ago to even remember that I had it.

I consider myself lucky that I did not invest more of myself in BTC at that time. I think this MtGox event would be a huge hit to me.

I successfully withdrew what I had there but that was a long time ago. I know it's easy to say now, but I always suspected they were a bit of a clownshoes operation because of the simply awful web design they deemed acceptable.

I transferred some in a while ago as an experiment but never managed to get it out. It wasn't very much but it still makes me sad I'll never see it return.

Will anyone be able to get their bitcoins from MtGox? They said the bitcoins were safe. What changed? Will they be transferred eventually? What are the chances?

Thank you coinbase. Coinbase only took me a few minutes to setup. Thankfully it saved me from falling for Mt.Gox. Good luck getting your BTC back! :)

If any of this is true it just goes to show that you should hold your own bitcoins...

I hope these are joke answers, that's an immense amount of money to go missing.

My meager little BTC monies are all at btc-e. Never had an issue with them so far.

Don't keep cryptocurrencies in an online wallet/exchange, unless you're actively using it to do day trading and understand/accept the risks. Otherwise always transfer it to a local wallet or cold storage as soon as you make the exchange.

Bitcoin is a decentralized currency for a reason. Don't trust centralized systems with your money when you can easily protect it much better than they can.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_to_set_up_a_secure_offline_sa...

Is there any chance to refund them ?

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Keep on dreaming.

Maybe so on the Fear, but there's certainly a certain Uncertainty when the service is not up, and undoubtedly a lot of Doubt when it's been rapidly declining before it fell.

how happy will you be when they'll be back? 0 or 1

Zero here, I've been treating BTC like Paypal balances. Cash out to native currency ASAP. Godspeed others.

edit: To those polling in at over 1000, yikes. Hopefully you 13 (so far) are joking around. Business or personal? Any insurance?

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