Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
Just so I understand. There were not BTC lost on Mt Gox. They were stolen, right? Someone got really rich by hacking in or something like that... I think.

-Jason "Or I could be 100% wrong, I haven't followed this as closely as I probably should" Evans
Actually, from the articles I've read, it sounds like they could have been lost.

Keep in mind, BitCoin is all about the Private Key (a long, unique, and hopefully secret string of ones and zeros). He who controls the Private Key to a piece of BitCoin controls that BitCoin. Everything else is just promises.

People have found that Mt. Gox code had some bugs in some of their transaction code, which sometimes resulted in a transaction going to a nonsense address. (At least, that's how I understand it.) That BitCoin is gone forever.

BitCoin isn't like cash where if you drop it, you or someone else can pick it back up. It isn't like regulated banking, where verification checks are made and if something fails, everything just stays where it is. If the Private Key owner of some BitCoin signs a transaction, my understanding is that's the end of it. If they happen to sign a transaction which sends the BitCoin to something that doesn't exist, that's where the BitCoin will remain.

One thing people haven't mentioned yet in this thread is that on exchanges, the private key is maintained ON THE EXCHANGE. You, as the user, don't have it. Mt. Gox does. This is why people "can't get their bitcoin out" of Mt. Gox. Only Mt. Gox can get the bitcoin out of Mt. Gox.