"I had a job interview with MtGox a couple of weeks ago for a frontend developer position. After talking about their technical environment I declined the position. Contemplated publicizing my story, but I have zero proof that the interview took place. But fuck me is their environment fucked up.
Either way, I have been recommending to my friends to move any BTC away from Gox as soon as possible, and regret not bringing this advice into the open. I'm a Tokyoite, so if you want to talk to me about the job Interview, or just drink a beer, send me a DM."
"I was told that up until a few weeks [at time of the interview] ago, there was hardly any development environment to test changes. Most changes were done straight on the production environment. Typing this made me throw up in my mouth.
The guy who interviewed me was very friendly, but I felt like a psychiatrist more than a job candidate. The dude went on about how shitty the atmosphere is at the offices, and what he told me about Mark seems to be spot on from what OP has said.
Interview guy, if you read this, sorry yo."
I've talked to a backend developer at Coinbase, he said their codebase is a mess and that he wouldn't hold any in their system. Also I submitted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7169114 a couple of days ago based on what I found on Reddit. And this is Coinbase, the good guy. MtGox has always been a clusterfuck.
This feels like the internet used to feel like. Back when you just used to assume that a credit card transaction wouldn't go through. Why? "Because internet". Bitcoin is so young and immature.
I've talked to a backend developer at Coinbase, he said their codebase is a mess and that he wouldn't hold any.
This, and a few other things I've witnessed firsthand makes me wonder if Y-Combinator doesn't need better technical intelligence or some form of auditing. It could be done in a non-intrusive spirit of openness. Basically position it as a "show and tell" focused on technical process. Just have companies show what they're proud of, and if they so choose, show what they're ashamed of/what extent of technical debt they're in.
> This feels like the internet used to feel like. Back when you just used to assume that a credit card transaction wouldn't go through. Why? "Because internet". Bitcoin is so young and immature.
I feel like the "immaturity" argument is just an excuse. Bitcoin itself is young, but we know how to handle encryption materials safely, we know how to process online transactions, we know how to write exchanges, etc. Mt. Gox wasn't taking on any new problems here. Most of the new stuff that goes into Bitcoin is abstracted away by the Bitcoin protocol.
It'd be very nice for newer players with extensive experience in this area to step up. If not with a new service, then maybe fortifying an existing one (like Coinbase).
>'ve talked to a backend developer at Coinbase, he said their codebase is a mess and that he wouldn't hold any in their system
I usually wouldn't jump in on hearsay or be negative in this way. But Coinbase apparently proudly uses MongoDB as their database. Which is just, like, bizarre.
But hey, I'm a rather satisfied customer. Although I'd be much more satisfied if they'd have let me buy earlier in 2013, instead of having an opaque systemwide cap system and not providing helpful responses.
Up until a few days ago, I had been too lazy to go through the trouble required to ensure that I trusted my ability to administer and recover my own personal Bitcoin wallet, instead deferring the responsibility to the online service that I stored them with. Though I realize the flaws in this method, I just didn't feel up to it. With all of this news about MtGox, I've accelerated my transitioning process.
Consider this a reminder that while Bitcoin may be an interesting technological achievement, as a tradable asset it is still basically a toy. Crappy exchange technology combined with low liquidity is a perfect recipe for this kind of volatility.
While I am in no position to predict the future of bitcoins, all new markets have these problems. At an early point in their history, stocks also had low liquidity and crappy technology. Both of these conditions will improve as an asset becomes more popular. It is a chicken-and-egg problem.
I think your sentence has too much of a tone of inevitability. "... will improve as an asset ..." should surely be "will improve if an asset ..." or perhaps "... in order for ...".
There's plenty of new markets which failed to take off, and died after a few years of use. Confederate dollars aren't quite the useful currency they once were, as an obvious example.
Otherwise it cuts too close to survivorship bias: is there a popular asset where the market has "low liquidity and crappy technology"?
There's also the question of where the money will come from to improve the technology. One of the benefits of BTC is the low transaction cost. But it might be that those transaction costs are exactly what's needed to fund exchange development.
I don't think its valid to call the buying and selling of Bitcoin a "new market." Bitcoin itself brings new idea, but the exchanges around trading them don't really solve any new problems in the way Bitcoin did. Its all old hat, and it just requires proper execution, not innovation.
This is more about a crappy exchange that has been crappy for most of its existence than about Bitcoin itself. The sky is not falling. MtGox may fall after this, but IMO that would be a good thing.
No, this is more about the freedom (and naivety) of the Bitcoin community. When you don't have any type of regulation or oversight in place, you get this type of free market free for all. There is no one single authority out there that can force Mt.Gox to clean ups it act. The only people with any power over the exchanges are their customers. But the customers aren't pushing for change for a variety of reasons. They either lack knowledge of these issues, knowledge about how these technical issues can cause problems, or have a vested enough interest in Bitcoin to overlook (or even down play) these issues.
I don't think his statement was with regards to Bitcoin itself. Calling it "a real tradeable asset" implies more about the market around buying, selling, and storing Bitcoin than the Bitcoin protocol. And its hard to argue that market is anything but immature.
Not even just the early days - Microsoft's fairly recent attempt at providing software for the London Stock Exchange met with disaster and frequent downtime [1]. This from a major tech giant, not just a card game exchange. Running a real exchange is a very difficult thing to do once the scale starts to ramp up.
The interesting thing about bitcoin is that you can just trade your friends for some p2p, you don't need a central exchange. You don't need a bank account to send someone bitcoins or to get some. You can just hand someone $20 and your address and they can send it to you p2p. No banking infrastructure involved.
That boggles the mind. It is impossible for bitcoin to become fully illiquid as long as people believe it has value, because there is no infrastructure to approve transactions. The approval happens p2p.
Everything can be traded as long as people believe in its value. Currencies are proxies. Proxies function best with stability in value and wide awareness of relative values for goods and against other currencies.
Bitcoin and its ilk are going to repeat the issues the US had when small and regional banks all printed their own bills. Their info infrastructure were large books, updated monthly that provided info to determine exchange rates/values. People didn't like getting burned everywhere on transaction costs and their value going poof when unsavory characters ran the underlying banks into the ground or rumors about the stability of far off banks were spread.
Centralized. government-backed fiat currencies solve many issues that most Bitbugs are coming to grips with the hard way. It's those issues which are exposed publicly and quickly which will keep it the most amazing speculative financial invention to a group of fiercely, independently minded folks who have the skills and means to gloss over all the failings of such a device being a proxy for fiat currency. It's just another layer of abstraction, not a replacement. And it's a leaky abstraction.
I'd sooner consider your comment a reminder that people will apply whatever possible interpretation to the facts is necessary in order to appear right. It's hard to even understand what it is you think you're contributing to the conversation. A dad-from-Growing-Pains-style chat on where to put our money? Reminding us that Mtgox -- which has a story on HN about them every other day -- is a clunky Rube Goldberg machine?
This comment really seems like poorly disguised crowing and nothing more. Not a reminder, certainly. Maybe a reminder of your great prognosticatory abilities -- you took the default position on 99% of new technologies, products and innovations. Where do you find the courage?
I think all of us veteran Bitcoin users saw this coming for awhile now. It's all the new users (<1 year) that are affected. They tend to disregard our advice to steer clear of Mt. Gox (and holding their BTC in an exchange like a bank). They're probably the same people who keep supporting scammers like BFL.
I bought some Jalapeños from BFL after my January order was not shipped until August, in the Black Friday sale.
The sale was advertised as "units in stock, ready for immediate delivery"
When they came (something like a full month later) they were approximately double the spec of the devices I thought I had ordered, but still for the same price. Thanks, I guess?
I can't say if they're shipping any faster now, but if the trend of decreasing wait times has continued, I'd expect that by now, they'll be competition for Amazon's rumored new "ship before you order" practices.
Honestly for the new customers, if their ASIC parts were actually delivered in less than two weeks, I would have to say you're not getting the full BFL experience anymore, and you should probably ask for a refund.
The BFL gear is cute and all, but there's a simple fact with selling Bitcoin mining hardware that is probably never going to be overcome. Why would you sell something you could make profit on if you kept it for yourself? This is pretty much the reason why we have ASICminer, KNCminer and Bitfury all either running or building mammoth sized facilities of their own.
bitcointalk.org or the bitcoin subredit has this info plastered all over the place.
Also before you do business with any BTC company you should probably search Google and Pacer for pending lawsuits. BFL has had lawsuits pending against it in state and federal court alleging fraud since at least late Nov. 2013 but no one noticed until yesterday because they named BFL as "BF Labs" which is an uncommon way of referring to them. Some other mining equipment manufactures have federal lawsuits pending against them for fraud as well.
Are you just as bitter that you missed Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Priceline, Intuitive Surgical or CNR?
Point being, these opportunities are everywhere, always. You're surrounded by them right now, they're just not obvious. But neither was BitCoin. And with the above you're actually buying into a real company, rather than speculating on a price change.
> Are you just as bitter that you missed Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Priceline, Intuitive Surgical or CNR?
Great point and one that is easy to lose sight of. I think bitcoin stings a little extra because many people on HN thought at the back of their mind that it might be big, but never acted. Whereas, at the time many of these stocks were cheap, most people weren't even considering buying them.
It's a bit harder to get in on those opportunities at a good price since to get in before the IPO you have to be an accredited investor. Bitcoin has no such restriction and in that way really was/is a one of a kind opportunity.
Bitcoin is not a stock, they are not comparable; stocks don't have the same growth curve as new technologies. Great opportunities are around all the time, but new technologies like Bitcoin are not.
That's a very good point. We have a tendency to think we would have gotten out at the highest price, with perfect foresight. In truth, a 5x increase would have felt like a huge, nearly irresistible payday. Even a 2x increase would.
I GPU-mined that much and spent it on BFL hardware at $12 :)
In US-dollars, over time, I profited, but there were no US dollars involved in any of those transactions, except what BFL surely got from BitPay for my orders. I traded basically 22 Bitcoins for a decent shot at about 12 Bitcoins.
so the question of the day I guess is will Dogecoin do the same thing? (it's "cheap" now)
I almost think that it will... in other words a bitcoin-like bubble will happen again, but maybe just once, and then not again (because there are so many people like me who feel like they missed out the "first time" on bitcoin)
Short term the price will drop even more dramatically, but once recovered, it should increase more, as main exchanges will get more busy. Or is there a flaw in my logic?
If Mt.Gox does implode like a lot of people are expecting then that is going to start a news cycle that is not favorable and probably cause the price to depress for a period. It will be a good time to get in though if you have been looking for a chance to buy at a good price.
Readit News
"I had a job interview with MtGox a couple of weeks ago for a frontend developer position. After talking about their technical environment I declined the position. Contemplated publicizing my story, but I have zero proof that the interview took place. But fuck me is their environment fucked up. Either way, I have been recommending to my friends to move any BTC away from Gox as soon as possible, and regret not bringing this advice into the open. I'm a Tokyoite, so if you want to talk to me about the job Interview, or just drink a beer, send me a DM."
"I was told that up until a few weeks [at time of the interview] ago, there was hardly any development environment to test changes. Most changes were done straight on the production environment. Typing this made me throw up in my mouth. The guy who interviewed me was very friendly, but I felt like a psychiatrist more than a job candidate. The dude went on about how shitty the atmosphere is at the offices, and what he told me about Mark seems to be spot on from what OP has said. Interview guy, if you read this, sorry yo."
I've talked to a backend developer at Coinbase, he said their codebase is a mess and that he wouldn't hold any in their system. Also I submitted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7169114 a couple of days ago based on what I found on Reddit. And this is Coinbase, the good guy. MtGox has always been a clusterfuck.
This feels like the internet used to feel like. Back when you just used to assume that a credit card transaction wouldn't go through. Why? "Because internet". Bitcoin is so young and immature.
This, and a few other things I've witnessed firsthand makes me wonder if Y-Combinator doesn't need better technical intelligence or some form of auditing. It could be done in a non-intrusive spirit of openness. Basically position it as a "show and tell" focused on technical process. Just have companies show what they're proud of, and if they so choose, show what they're ashamed of/what extent of technical debt they're in.
I feel like the "immaturity" argument is just an excuse. Bitcoin itself is young, but we know how to handle encryption materials safely, we know how to process online transactions, we know how to write exchanges, etc. Mt. Gox wasn't taking on any new problems here. Most of the new stuff that goes into Bitcoin is abstracted away by the Bitcoin protocol.
It'd be very nice for newer players with extensive experience in this area to step up. If not with a new service, then maybe fortifying an existing one (like Coinbase).
I usually wouldn't jump in on hearsay or be negative in this way. But Coinbase apparently proudly uses MongoDB as their database. Which is just, like, bizarre.
But hey, I'm a rather satisfied customer. Although I'd be much more satisfied if they'd have let me buy earlier in 2013, instead of having an opaque systemwide cap system and not providing helpful responses.
Would be willing to share my story, with proof, but sadly I'm not a good writer. :(
But I can confirm that it is as screwed up as the commentor on Reddit wrote. Not even the developers would trust their money or BTC to Gox.
There's plenty of new markets which failed to take off, and died after a few years of use. Confederate dollars aren't quite the useful currency they once were, as an obvious example.
Otherwise it cuts too close to survivorship bias: is there a popular asset where the market has "low liquidity and crappy technology"?
There may eventually be a time where trading in bitcoins is productive, but for now it is a bit risky.
Deleted Comment
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/4676369/Seven-hou...
That boggles the mind. It is impossible for bitcoin to become fully illiquid as long as people believe it has value, because there is no infrastructure to approve transactions. The approval happens p2p.
Bitcoin and its ilk are going to repeat the issues the US had when small and regional banks all printed their own bills. Their info infrastructure were large books, updated monthly that provided info to determine exchange rates/values. People didn't like getting burned everywhere on transaction costs and their value going poof when unsavory characters ran the underlying banks into the ground or rumors about the stability of far off banks were spread.
Centralized. government-backed fiat currencies solve many issues that most Bitbugs are coming to grips with the hard way. It's those issues which are exposed publicly and quickly which will keep it the most amazing speculative financial invention to a group of fiercely, independently minded folks who have the skills and means to gloss over all the failings of such a device being a proxy for fiat currency. It's just another layer of abstraction, not a replacement. And it's a leaky abstraction.
This comment really seems like poorly disguised crowing and nothing more. Not a reminder, certainly. Maybe a reminder of your great prognosticatory abilities -- you took the default position on 99% of new technologies, products and innovations. Where do you find the courage?
The sale was advertised as "units in stock, ready for immediate delivery"
When they came (something like a full month later) they were approximately double the spec of the devices I thought I had ordered, but still for the same price. Thanks, I guess?
I can't say if they're shipping any faster now, but if the trend of decreasing wait times has continued, I'd expect that by now, they'll be competition for Amazon's rumored new "ship before you order" practices.
Honestly for the new customers, if their ASIC parts were actually delivered in less than two weeks, I would have to say you're not getting the full BFL experience anymore, and you should probably ask for a refund.
I will probably not order from them again.
I particularly liked this juxtaposition on their store — http://i.imgur.com/uZVKRBX.png
Also before you do business with any BTC company you should probably search Google and Pacer for pending lawsuits. BFL has had lawsuits pending against it in state and federal court alleging fraud since at least late Nov. 2013 but no one noticed until yesterday because they named BFL as "BF Labs" which is an uncommon way of referring to them. Some other mining equipment manufactures have federal lawsuits pending against them for fraud as well.
The fact they can't spin up a new MtGox environment with cloned data stores is troubling.
:|
Are you just as bitter that you missed Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Priceline, Intuitive Surgical or CNR?
Point being, these opportunities are everywhere, always. You're surrounded by them right now, they're just not obvious. But neither was BitCoin. And with the above you're actually buying into a real company, rather than speculating on a price change.
Great point and one that is easy to lose sight of. I think bitcoin stings a little extra because many people on HN thought at the back of their mind that it might be big, but never acted. Whereas, at the time many of these stocks were cheap, most people weren't even considering buying them.
2 years ago i turned over my bitcoins at 5x return in 3 months. there's no way i would have held on to them for a 5000x return.
In US-dollars, over time, I profited, but there were no US dollars involved in any of those transactions, except what BFL surely got from BitPay for my orders. I traded basically 22 Bitcoins for a decent shot at about 12 Bitcoins.
So it goes with the preorder game!
I almost think that it will... in other words a bitcoin-like bubble will happen again, but maybe just once, and then not again (because there are so many people like me who feel like they missed out the "first time" on bitcoin)
http://www.bitcoinpulse.com/
Short term the price will drop even more dramatically, but once recovered, it should increase more, as main exchanges will get more busy. Or is there a flaw in my logic?
Localbitcoins ~50 pounds compared to two days ago.
2. Number of users SPENDING bitcoins to purchase goods
3. Number of merchants accepting bitcoins for goods
4. Total $ value of bitcoins being spent to purchase goods
5. Total $ value of bitcoins being spent to perform international money transfers
6. Amount of press (bad press OK, good press is worth much more) that bitcoins are getting as it drives 1 and 3.
I'm sure others have their own list of fundamentals.