Jed McCaleb's Bitcoin Exchange -- Mt. Gox
2010 Jul 18
See all posts
Jed McCaleb's Bitcoin Exchange -- Mt. Gox @ Satoshi Nakamoto
- Author
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Satoshi Nakamoto
- Email
-
satoshinakamotonetwork@proton.me
- Site
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https://satoshinakamoto.network
Following the launch of Bitcoin Market in March 2010, the next major
development for Bitcoin Exchanges comes a few months later with the
launch of the Mt. Gox, which describs itself as an exchange that "allows
you to trade US Dollars (USD) for Bitcoins (BTC) or Bitcoins for US
Dollars with other Mt Gox users. You set the price you want to buy or
sell your BTC for."
Launched by Jed McCaleb, the exchange and website name is an
abbreviation of a previous site of McCaleb's called "Magic: The
Gathering Online", hence the name Mt Gox.
McCaleb announced the launch of his exchange on, you guessed it, the
Bitcointalk.org forum, in a short post, where he said:
Hi Everyone, I just put up a new bitcoin exchange. Please let me know
what you think. https://mtgox.com
Mt. Gox
Bitcoin exchange homepage from 3 February 2011, one week before BTC
reached parity with the US dollar.
The prices on Mt Gox were basically in the form of last traded price,
High, Low and volume (over 24 hours), as well as Current Lowest Buy and
Current Highest Sell Prices offered by exchange users. According to the
Mt Gox homepage, "all trades are between users. So the current buy price
and current low price is just what someone else entered."
There was even technical analysis of the Bitcoin price on the Mt Gox
site from as early as November 2010, with user ‘S3052' (who was also
active on Bitcointalk.org) posting daily updates, such as on 6 December
2010. In hindsight, these Bitcoin prices look miniscule now and
practically unbelievable:
Overall, the decline is continuing. Unless 0.3 – 0.35$ are taken out
substantially, the trend is DOWN. A strong target remains 0.1 –
0.14$.
Analysis
Long term outlook: BTC/USD have broken the long-term trendline
(now around 0.23$ and slowly rising) to the downside. Support lies in
the 0.11-0.14$ area. As long as prices find support there, there is
"light in the end of the tunnel", meaning an end of the decline with
continued rally.
Short term update "A break down below 0.20 would deteriorate the
technical picture heavily and open the door for fast declines". We have
breached the 0.20 level with a low of 0.185$ today, so unless prices
move back above 0.20 and more importantly, the trendline quickly, a sell
off towards ultimately 0.1$ is quite probable. As you can see in the
volume picture, huge buying volume came in between 0.09 and 0.10$, which
makes this a likely strong support level.
Less than a month later, Bitcoin prices had rallied nearly 500% as a
range of prices on the Mt. Gox ‘Buy Bitcoins' (3 January 2011) were in
the range of USD $0.93 to USD $0.955 per Bitcoin.
In March 2011, Jed McCaleb sold the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange to Mark
Karpelès (who went by the name MagicalTux on Bitcointalk.org). The sale
was announced on the Bitcointalk.org forum on 6 March 2011 by user mtgox
(Jed McCaleb) where he posted:
Hello Everyone
I created mtgox on a lark after reading about bitcoins last summer.
It has been interesting and fun to do. I'm still very confident that
bitcoins have a bright future. But to really make mtgox what it has the
potential to be would require more time than I have right now. So I've
decided to pass the torch to someone better able to take the site to the
next level.
MagicalTux has already contributed a lot to the bitcoin community and
in many ways he will be better at running the site than I was.
...Thanks to everyone that has supported mtgox so far. Can't wait to
see BTC hit $10! "
Following the sale, Karpelès, who had moved from France to Japan in
2009, moved the Mt Gox operation to the Shibuya business district in
Tokyo and structured Mt. Gox as part of his Japanese company Tibanne Co
Ltd. A revamped Mt. Gox website was launched on 1 December 2011.
Homepage of the
Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange after it had moved to Japan
Mt Gox described itself as "facilitating the exchange of Bitcoins
between users globally in the currency of their choice. Multiple
currency markets allow users to purchase and resell their Bitcoins in up
to 16 different currencies, along with the ability to securely store
Bitcoins in a virtual "vault" for safe keeping".
Bitcoin price chart in USD, MTGOX 2012 March – April. Price
range $4.50 – $5.50
Update
For anyone not aware of what happened to Mt. Gox, it on 28 February
2014, citing insolvency and seeking protection from creditors,
announcing that it had lost approximately 850,000 Bitcoins. This
comprised 750,000 Bitcoins belonging to clients and 100,000 Bitcoins
belonging to Mt. Gox. Mt Gox claimed it had been hacked and the Bitcoins
stolen.
According to the Wall Street Journal as cited by the LA Times:
There was some weakness in the system, and the bitcoins have
disappeared. I apologize for causing trouble," said Mt. Gox Chief
Executive Mark Karpeles at a news conference in Tokyo.
A few weeks later, Mt. Gox said that it found 200,000 Bitcoins after
it was pointed out by blockchain watchers that these coins were still
moving among Mt Gox BTC addresses. For a good recap about Mt Gox at the
time see a March 2014 article from Wired here.
According to the Japan Times, a US task force investigating Mt Gox
traced the bulk of the 600,000 hacked Bitcoins to a Russian programmer
called Alexander Vinnik and arrested him in Greece in 2017 for "allegedly
laundering funds from hack of Mt. Gox". Vinnik had been the
co-founder of an early Russian Bitcoin exchange in 2011 called
BTC-e.com. Not to be confused with another early Russian Bitcoin
exchange (also started in 2011) called BTCex.com.
BTC price has changed from 1500 BTC for a $1 in October 2009 to 1 BTC
for $1 in February 2011.
Jed McCaleb's Bitcoin Exchange -- Mt. Gox
2010 Jul 18 See all postsSatoshi Nakamoto
satoshinakamotonetwork@proton.me
https://satoshinakamoto.network
Following the launch of Bitcoin Market in March 2010, the next major development for Bitcoin Exchanges comes a few months later with the launch of the Mt. Gox, which describs itself as an exchange that "allows you to trade US Dollars (USD) for Bitcoins (BTC) or Bitcoins for US Dollars with other Mt Gox users. You set the price you want to buy or sell your BTC for."
Launched by Jed McCaleb, the exchange and website name is an abbreviation of a previous site of McCaleb's called "Magic: The Gathering Online", hence the name Mt Gox.
McCaleb announced the launch of his exchange on, you guessed it, the Bitcointalk.org forum, in a short post, where he said:
The prices on Mt Gox were basically in the form of last traded price, High, Low and volume (over 24 hours), as well as Current Lowest Buy and Current Highest Sell Prices offered by exchange users. According to the Mt Gox homepage, "all trades are between users. So the current buy price and current low price is just what someone else entered."
There was even technical analysis of the Bitcoin price on the Mt Gox site from as early as November 2010, with user ‘S3052' (who was also active on Bitcointalk.org) posting daily updates, such as on 6 December 2010. In hindsight, these Bitcoin prices look miniscule now and practically unbelievable:
Less than a month later, Bitcoin prices had rallied nearly 500% as a range of prices on the Mt. Gox ‘Buy Bitcoins' (3 January 2011) were in the range of USD $0.93 to USD $0.955 per Bitcoin.
In March 2011, Jed McCaleb sold the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange to Mark Karpelès (who went by the name MagicalTux on Bitcointalk.org). The sale was announced on the Bitcointalk.org forum on 6 March 2011 by user mtgox (Jed McCaleb) where he posted:
Following the sale, Karpelès, who had moved from France to Japan in 2009, moved the Mt Gox operation to the Shibuya business district in Tokyo and structured Mt. Gox as part of his Japanese company Tibanne Co Ltd. A revamped Mt. Gox website was launched on 1 December 2011.
Mt Gox described itself as "facilitating the exchange of Bitcoins between users globally in the currency of their choice. Multiple currency markets allow users to purchase and resell their Bitcoins in up to 16 different currencies, along with the ability to securely store Bitcoins in a virtual "vault" for safe keeping".
Update
For anyone not aware of what happened to Mt. Gox, it on 28 February 2014, citing insolvency and seeking protection from creditors, announcing that it had lost approximately 850,000 Bitcoins. This comprised 750,000 Bitcoins belonging to clients and 100,000 Bitcoins belonging to Mt. Gox. Mt Gox claimed it had been hacked and the Bitcoins stolen.
According to the Wall Street Journal as cited by the LA Times:
A few weeks later, Mt. Gox said that it found 200,000 Bitcoins after it was pointed out by blockchain watchers that these coins were still moving among Mt Gox BTC addresses. For a good recap about Mt Gox at the time see a March 2014 article from Wired here.
According to the Japan Times, a US task force investigating Mt Gox traced the bulk of the 600,000 hacked Bitcoins to a Russian programmer called Alexander Vinnik and arrested him in Greece in 2017 for "allegedly laundering funds from hack of Mt. Gox". Vinnik had been the co-founder of an early Russian Bitcoin exchange in 2011 called BTC-e.com. Not to be confused with another early Russian Bitcoin exchange (also started in 2011) called BTCex.com.
BTC price has changed from 1500 BTC for a $1 in October 2009 to 1 BTC for $1 in February 2011.