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Bitcoin The Courts

US Court Freezes Assets of Mt. Gox CEO 132

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the should-have-stuck-to-magic-cards dept.
jfruh writes "Mt. Gox has managed to enter court-protected bankruptcy in the United States, but Gregory Greene, who lost $25,000 in the bitcoin company's collapse, has convinced a court in Chicago to freeze the assets of Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles and two companies associated with him. 'Money is moving around as we speak, bitcoins are moving around accounts associated with Mt. Gox,' said Greene's lawyer. 'Something is not right so we urgently need to get to the bottom of this quickly.'" The Mt Gox stole the missing bitcoins theory.
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US Court Freezes Assets of Mt. Gox CEO More

US Court Freezes Assets of Mt. Gox CEO

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  • Interesting parallel (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @11:50AM (#46465309)

    In Japan, MtGox is not liable because bitcoins aren't money (i.e. nothing real was lost).

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But in America, if it has value, it can be seized.

    • Re:Interesting parallel (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lendrick ( 314723 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @12:00PM (#46465437) Homepage Journal

      It would be a delicious irony if people were able to recover some of their lost value due to government regulations.

      • Re:Interesting parallel (Score:4, Interesting)

        by JcMorin ( 930466 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @12:28PM (#46465711)
        The government did seize twice 5 millions in cash from Mt. Gox banks account. Giving back this money would be a good start.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Shoten ( 260439 )

        It would be a delicious irony if people were able to recover some of their lost value due to government regulations.

        You mean like what would have happened if they were regulated like a real bank?

        Just a few months ago, when there was talk of regulating exchanges like these, there was an uproar. I didn't think that the reasons for regulatory oversight would have made themselves apparent so quickly, to be honest. Just the fact that nobody can be sure whether Mt. Gox got ripped off or ripped people off is one reason alone.

        I totally get that there are benefits to a truly untraceable, anonymous currency. But to those who op

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by TWX ( 665546 )

          I totally get that there are benefits to a truly untraceable, anonymous currency. But to those who oppose regulation for the simple fact that it's the government getting involved, I would advise taking a look at what happened to the banking industry back in the 1920s and early 1930s before making claims that it's all bad.

          Yep. Rules and regulations are usually a byproduct of previous experience. Wildcat banks [wikipedia.org] often issued their own scrip, supposedly based on currency on-deposit, but often that currency wa

        • It would be a delicious irony if people were able to recover some of their lost value due to government regulations.

          You mean like what would have happened if they were regulated like a real bank?

          This has nothing to do with applying banking regulations to Mt Gox. It is about applying laws about fraud and theft. The difference is that regulations put a burden on innocent and guilty alike but potentially prevent problems before they occur, whereas laws simply attempt to punish the guilty and compensate the victims after the fact. If people do in fact recover any money as a result of this, it won't be particularly ironic since libertarians fully support laws on fraud, just not banking regulations, and

      • It would be a delicious irony if people were able to recover some of their lost value due to government regulations.

        The most delicious irony would be if his funds were frozen, and then he used "unfreezable" funds to hire a lawyer to argue in court to get his fiat funds unfrozen. Part of the point (I admit, there's a lot more to it than that) of asset freezing is to prevent justice so that suspects have a harder time defending themselves from abusive use of power. Bitcoin is one of the proposed solutions.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pepty ( 1976012 )
          If the prosecutor proved to the judge that you hid assets and used them to pay the lawyer things might get hinky. Might get hinky for the lawyer too since presumably he should have known about the order to freeze assets. I think the "unfreezable" will stay in quotes, at least as far as payments for traceable goods and services go.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ron_ivi ( 607351 )

      In Japan, MtGox is not liable because bitcoins aren't money (i.e. nothing real was lost).

      Couldn't one say the same about most any fiat currency (backed by nothing but the whims of some private company (the Federal Reserve Bank) - not unlike how WoW gold is backed by nothing but the whims of Bilzzard)? And also the same about any currency with lenders that get to do fractional reserve banking (they essentially get to make money on whims by loaning out more than they have)?

      Seems Bitcoins aren't that different than Zimbabwe Dollars.

      • Japanese law begs to differ; it does distinguish between currency (however they define it) and other tokens.

        • The good news their is that since anything of value has value in the US, this can still mostly be dealt with in the US courts. For Japanese people who were living and working in Japan, and transferring money to/from other Japanese, they'll be in the cold. But I expect US and European customers to get back at least 10% after arrests are made.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        In Japan, MtGox is not liable because bitcoins aren't money (i.e. nothing real was lost).

        Couldn't one say the same about most any fiat currency (backed by nothing but the whims of some private company (the Federal Reserve Bank) - not unlike how WoW gold is backed by nothing but the whims of Bilzzard)? And also the same about any currency with lenders that get to do fractional reserve banking (they essentially get to make money on whims by loaning out more than they have)?

        Seems Bitcoins aren't that different than Zimbabwe Dollars.

        You could say it.

        But you would be completely wrong.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Interesting parallel (Score:4, Informative)

        by BasilBrush ( 643681 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @01:17PM (#46466393)

        No. Each country has an official currency that the government use for accounting, to tax, and to pay. In the USA that is the US dollar. These official currencies are unique and irreplaceable for that reason. The government could choose to change to another currency, but you as an individual or company can't.

        When you are taxed, you can't do it with bitcoin. You will be taxed on the official currency equivalent, and will have to pay in actual US dollars.

        You libertarians are too hooked on the gold standard. The major fiat currencies are more stable. Take a look at a chart of the value of gold.

        • These official currencies are unique and irreplaceable for that reason.

          Many countries (or cities, or towns, or other organizations) throughout history have had no official currency, and others have used shared currencies. In the USA, the Spanish dollar and Mexican peso remained legal tender until 1857. At least six countries today use the US dollar as their official currency.

          Even when an official currency existed at a national level, unofficial currencies often could be and were used by governmental or other entities below the national level (for example, look up the Worgl E

    • Japan doesn't think Bitcoin is a currency and subsequently has no idea how to deal with MtGox's liabilities, but they most certainly have not obviated them.

      • Japan doesn't think Bitcoin is a currency and subsequently has no idea how to deal with MtGox's liabilities, but they most certainly have not obviated them.

        How does Japan deal with other insolvent companies that owe liabilities in-kind rather than in raw cash? How would they deal, for instance, with an insolvent grain elevator where the customers' grain went missing? Why not just apply the same principle here?

    • Re:Interesting parallel (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pla ( 258480 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @12:05PM (#46465487) Journal
      In Japan, MtGox is not liable because bitcoins aren't money (i.e. nothing real was lost).

      MtGox tracked account balances in both BTC and USD. Bitcoins may have no legal value, but wouldn't Gox remain on the hook for the dollar-denominated balances in their care?

      • Wouldn't they be a commodity though? Traded like any other thing?

        Originally, money i.e. pieces of precious metal people wanted, was that, too.

      • Bitcoins may have no legal value, but wouldn't Gox remain on the hook for the dollar-denominated balances in their care?

        Not necessarily. Depends on the nature of the custodial agreement and how the accounting was handled. Local laws play a role too. Remember that we we aren't talking about a regulated bank here so the usual rules regarding currency and banking don't necessarily apply.

        And the bitcoins have a legal value, they just aren't considered currency by Japan. Big difference. They're still an asset, just legally speaking they are a different kind of asset. It's a distinction that in the end probably doesn't matter

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rich0 ( 548339 )

          Depends on the nature of the custodial agreement and how the accounting was handled.

          Only to a degree.

          If we agree to trade 5 sheep for $500, and I give you 5 sheep, and you don't give me $500, a court is going to frown on that. Just about anything we agree to on paper isn't going to change that a great deal. Maybe if we agree that you don't have to pay me for six months then the court will give you six months.

          If you argue that the piece of paper really says that you can take my sheep and only give me $500 if you feel like it, then a court is just going to ignore the paper.

          Now, if we were

          • Now, if we were talking about an investment of some kind where I stood to both gain and lose, then a court would treat it as such.

            In all likelihood that is what we have here. People who stashed their bitcoins there take the risk of them going up or down like a stock. Best case they might be eligible to receive the current market value of what is stored there (basically be "made whole") and worst case the court might consider the bitcoins to be worthless. I think the former is more likely but I could see either happening. Hard to predict here especially since there are a lot of facts still unknown.

            Bottom line is that you can't use legal arguments to claim that a contract should be construed in a one-sided way.

            Agreed and I'm certainly not argui

    • Re:Interesting parallel (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JDG1980 ( 2438906 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @12:10PM (#46465543)

      In Japan, MtGox is not liable because bitcoins aren't money (i.e. nothing real was lost).

      Whether or not bitcoins are "money" should be irrelevant. What matters is that they are a thing of value. How do we know they are a thing of value? Because someone is willing to pay for them. Therefore they are an asset, just as (say) a collection of classic cars or rare Atari 2600 games would be an asset. None of them are official currency, but they are things of value, and that value can be defined with a reasonable amount of precision by looking at what people are paying for these items on various markets.

      • WoW gold also has value, can be sold (someone is willing to pay for it), etc. However Blizzard could stop renewing subscriptions and then shut off the servers, and people with gold balances would have no legal recourse, even in the U.S. where assets are more loosely defined the way you think they should be. The same would be true, for example, for Magic: The Gathering online cards and currency, which could be easily shut off in bankruptcy without legal resource to card or currency holders.

        In Japan, law re

    • Bitcoin may not be a currency, but it is certainly could be considered property. See this article: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com... [nakedcapitalism.com]

    • In Japan, MtGox is not liable because bitcoins aren't money (i.e. nothing real was lost).

      ["Verifiable" citation needed.] Ty for not asserting something on your own authority making it necessary for everyone else to go check if they want to engage you...oh right, an AC. Dang it. :(

  • good move (Score:4, Interesting)

    by globaljustin ( 574257 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @11:52AM (#46465337) Journal

    MtGox has had this coming. They need to provide answers.

    I don't see this as anything other than routing criminal proceedings.

    • Re:good move (Score:4, Informative)

      by Registered Coward v2 ( 447531 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @12:03PM (#46465471)

      MtGox has had this coming. They need to provide answers.

      I don't see this as anything other than routing criminal proceedings.

      Actually, it's a civil suit so the judge froze assets to prevent them from disappearing while the suit sorts itself out. It doesn't cover all the entities since some are in bankruptcy proceedings; once discovery starts it will be interesting to see what is revealed.

      • Re:good move (Score:4, Interesting)

        by PRMan ( 959735 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @12:28PM (#46465705)
        Karpeles has 200,000 BTC in an address that he has proven he has control over in the past. There's nothing to wonder about. He stole the coins (at least 200,000 of them).
        • Or perhaps he "lucked out" and his account with Mt. Gox came out whole with a clean transfer to the outside, while everyone else's bitcoin "disappeared" with the sinking ship. It has the whiff of fraud, even if we do not know without more details.

          • Re:good move (Score:4, Informative)

            by JDG1980 ( 2438906 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @01:59PM (#46466933)

            Or perhaps he "lucked out" and his account with Mt. Gox came out whole with a clean transfer to the outside, while everyone else's bitcoin "disappeared" with the sinking ship.

            Under bankruptcy law, this would be known as "fraudulent conveyance". Courts don't look upon this kindly.

    • heh...usually typos don't matter but in this case...

      I don't see this as anything other than **routing** criminal proceedings.

      routine...I meant to type "routine" not "routing"

      afaik none of the MtGOX ppl are accused of any kind of crime & in general all currencies are used for "routing criminal" stuff...so you can't arrest BTC people just b/c its used in illegal transactions

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bberens ( 965711 )
        No, but you can arrest bankers at HSBC for assisting in money laundering for drug cartels... oh wait.

  • Parallels! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Thanshin ( 1188877 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @11:56AM (#46465377)

    So they printed fake money, convinced people it was real, got the people's money, said they lost it, but actually were stealing it, and now they are saying they don't have money while moving money to private accounts?

    If they had a flag they'd be a government.

  • Oh So NOW you want regulation eh? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @12:05PM (#46465493)

    So, let me get this straight. You want the government to order that the CEO of Mt Gox not have access to his assets? Yea, good luck with that.

    If he was the one who took all the BitCoin from their depositors, what's to keep him from trading them? Nothing, really. Remember that BitCoin is unregulated by design.

    Give it a rest, you lost your money and nobody can prove where it went. Oh the joys of an unregulated currency.

    • Re:Oh So NOW you want regulation eh? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sockatume ( 732728 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @12:10PM (#46465535)

      Err, pretty much the only thing the Bitcoin network does is "prove where [bitcoins] went". Outside the network is another matter. The issue isn't unregulated Bitcoin; the issue is unregulated Bitcoin exchanges.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Give it a rest, you lost your money and nobody can prove where it went. Oh the joys of an unregulated currency.

      Give it a rest, you gave your money to Madoff. He lost it and nobody can prove where it went. Oh the joys of a regulated currency.

      Good news though you also got to caught up a bunch of money in Taxation to support the SEC that didn't save you...

      • Madoff wasn't running a "regulated" business either, his was a Ponzi scheme too. The difference here is that the SEC ended it, once they found out what it was.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          No he was very much running a regulated business. Was he violating regulations, yes, but there is the point it isn't as if something being against the rules creates some magic inviolate barrier to doing it.

          Yes the SEC shut him down, just like the bankruptcy court is going to be shutting down Mt.Gox. In both cases after much of the money is long gone.

          A cheat is a cheat, using Dollars or Bitcoins. Getting conned sucks for the victim and a slightly longer list of criminal complaints against the conman, beyo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PRMan ( 959735 )
      And anybody that left large sums of money on an exchange where they weren't paying out in dollars for 6 months should have known better.

    • You don't good luck for a court order. You just need the order.

    • The NSA taps into all Internet communications. Do you honestly think they don't have a substantial copy of the whole Bitcoin transaction record? IPs et al?

      They may not have names in that database but they can certainly connect both if they want to.

      • Problem with this is that it is totally impossible to collect ALL traffic, even for the NSA. There has to be some kind of filtering between where they tap into the network and where they store the information they collect. Not to mention that they are not Santa Claus, they don't have 100% coverage of all internet traffic.

        With that in mind, tell me why the NSA would be interested in watching Mt Gox? Because that's what you are really saying, that the NSA was specifically targeting Mt Gox and/or BitCoin tr

  • A test of the principles (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rinisari ( 521266 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @12:08PM (#46465523) Homepage Journal

    So this is actually a test of the one of the attractive principles of Bitcoin: no one can separate you from your money, assuming that you control your private keys. Karpeles isn't a complete idiot, so I'm certain the keys to what balance he himself maintains are safely stored somewhere only he knows (brain wallet?). So, assuming that he has substantial holdings in bitcoin, then what good does the asset freeze do? He is free to spend bitcoin, unless the asset freeze also prevents businesses from accepting money of any kind from him.

    Same holds for the two companies, but they are much more likely to have a larger USD balance that is actually affected by the freeze.

    • Re:A test of the principles (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JDG1980 ( 2438906 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @12:22PM (#46465643)

      So, assuming that he has substantial holdings in bitcoin, then what good does the asset freeze do? He is free to spend bitcoin, unless the asset freeze also prevents businesses from accepting money of any kind from him.

      If he violates the court order, it would be treated the same way as if he violated any other court order: he could be held in contempt and sent to jail.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rich0 ( 548339 )

      What's he going to spend his bitcoins on? Also, the government can just order him to hand over the keys to his wallet and hold him in contempt (in jail) until he complies.

      Anything tangible he owns can be seized, as can he. Courts aren't as easy to bamboozle as his customers. The only way to avoid a court is to shelter all your assets and your person in a jurisdiction that won't hand you over and can't be forced to hand you over.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @12:22PM (#46465647)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      He's the same sort of clever that the banker smart guys used to cause the 2008 crash, for which precisely ZERO of them ended up in jail.

      We live in a scam culture. Fraud is the only way to do business today. The honesty in the system has been driven out, since dishonesty earned too much of the money. In other words, the bad money drove out the good.

      There's only one option, then, for the common man: OPT OUT. Opt out before these entrenched fraud systems take you for every last dime (or bitdime) you have.

  • banking system in php. lol (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Karpeles is a php developer.

    He probably wrote the entire exchange in php and mysql.

  • If only his assets were all in bitcoins, then the US government wouldn't be able to freeze them.

    • If only his assets were all in bitcoins, then the US government wouldn't be able to freeze them.

      What makes bitcoins different from any other asset, real or intangible, that can be converted into cash?

      • Bitcoins are not different from every other asset that can be converted to cash (for this case). Bitcoins are different than money in a bank account in terms of the ability of a government with regulatory power over a bank to freeze a persons assets.

        The government can't call up a bank somewhere and pressure them into taking away your bitcoins. Like cash in your physical possession, if the government wants it, they have to come and get it from you (or hack into your computer).

        • Unless you tell someone the id of your wallet(s) the government has no way of knowing what you own.

        • Sure. Same as a suitcase of cash. However, if the government ever finds you transferred bitcoins or cash that were legally frozen, you're in deep trouble. At least cash they can't trace back to a suitcase and prove you owned the suitcase. Do it with bitcoins and there's a permanent audit trail if they can ever show that wallet was yours.

          • I'm pretty sure you can trace cash if you really wanted to. I think it's probably harder in some ways than tracing bitcoin, but it's easier in other ways. With bitcoin it's trivially easy to create new wallets and transfer money between them. Trying to figure out who owns which wallet might be possible in a lot of circumstances, but you can exchange money between different wallets orders of magnitude more time with bitcoin than would be practical with real money.

            You could sell 20 bitcoins on an exchange

            • Sure. Then the FBI manages to pin the original wallet on you, and finds you spent 20 bitcoins of frozen assets, because if they have the wallet info they can tell what was spent when (correct me if I'm wrong). Cash is potentially traceable, but you aren't going to leave a possible eternal audit trail.

              • If you sell 20 bitcoins and use the money to buy 20 new bitcoins, I think this is untraceable from the info in the blockchain. That's because there is no link between the old bitcoins, the virtual dollars that existed (only in IOU form), and the new bitcoins (in the new wallet). The exchange has this information, but the exchange might not be in the jurisdiction of the FBI.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @01:26PM (#46466521)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • the reverse however is true (bitcoin has an arbitrary or not-so-arbitrary value in currency, but the value of the US Dollar/British Pound/Euro/etc. is not defined as having value relative to bitcoin).

      Is anybody here still naive enough to confuse my (personal crypto) check for cash? I assert that the check in my hand is worth $100.00 - who'll give me $95.00 for it? I promise it's good . . .

      USD Fiat has no legal enforcement as currency outside of the US either. Exchanges, Companies, Governments or Individuals can choose to accept them or not. They place a value on them dynamically by what they perceive they are valued at in reference to their currency.

      This is exactly the same with Bitcoin.

      Additionally, many judges and governments have indeed declared Bitcoin a currency. One example : http://www.courthousenews.com/... [courthousenews.com]

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Nice try - but it still isn't legal tender. Here in the USA there is a legal definition that US money is legal tender and must be accepted for payment of all debts, public and private. Says it right on the money. Any country on the Earth with a functioning government makes the same assertion about their money within their borders. It's one of the basic sovereign powers which any world government is able to exercise (if they're truly a national government).

          So . . . no, Republic Credits are no good here. I can buy stuff at the corner grocery store with money. I can pay my rent with money. I can buy gasoline with money. How's that bitcoin workin' for ya?

          Nice try sidestepping my comment. Read it again:

          USD Fiat has no legal enforcement as currency outside of the US either.. Bitcoin is merely a competing currency like any other.

          Additionally, USD fiat is legal tender to pay all debts. There is no enforceability for accepting USD as payment for a good or service. All businesses and individuals can choose how they wish to be paid and who their potential clients are. Businesses within the US can choose to turn away people paying in USD and do so all the time. This is why an individual can pay taxes and debts in thousands of pennies in protest and businesses turn away clients all the time

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