Questions of insolvency have surrounded MtGox for roughly half a year, and it has now gotten to the point where some people are willing to sell their GoxBTC at a discounted rate . Whether they think Gox is playing with funny money or they just want to get out of the exchange right now for another reason, there seem to be plenty of people willing to sell their GoxBTC for less than what it should be worth. Josh Jones, the founder of Dreamhost, has decided to take advantage of the situation by setting up an exchange for everyone who wants to trade GoxBTC and “real” BTC . The current exchange rates on Bitcoin Builder have GoxBTC selling for rough 0.75 BTC.
How Does it Work?
While you cannot currently withdraw bitcoins from MtGox, you can still transfer those bitcoins to another MtGox account. The way the Bitcoin Builder exchange works is that someone who wants to sell GoxBTC sends their Mt Gox bitcoins to Bitcoin Builder’s Mt Gox account. Once Bitcoin Builder receives the bitcoins, they can be put up for sale on the Bitcoin Builder exchange. When a buyer is found, the GoxBTC is sent to the buyer’s MtGox account and the real BTC is sent to the original seller’s Bitcoin address. The current fee for this process is 2%.
What Does This Mean?
It seems that most people are finally ready to give up on MtGox. Although there is no clear-cut evidence that the exchange is actually insolvent, some people are looking to play it safe. The level of trust between MtGox and their customers is at an all-time low, but we should be able to get some answers about their future in the coming weeks. Andreas Antonopoulos tweeted his expectation that all major Bitcoin exchanges to have fixes for the transaction malleability issue sometime next week, which should mean that MtGox will then be able to resume withdrawals. If you’re someone who thinks MtGox actually has the bitcoins to back up their accounts, then you may want to snatch up some of those bitcoins at a discount before a fix is found.
