Quote from: anonymous5050 on July 16, 2012, 07:48:32 PM

Quote from: Mt.Gox Support on February 01, 2012, 04:52:49 AM

we plan to have this document verified by third party auditors for future releases, however we want to set a realistic expectation this may not happen by the next quarter.

Will we see an audit some time this year?

If you ask MtGox if they've done an audit, their answer is YES, we've done it, just look at our name Tibanne is listed at such-and-such Japanese website.

If you ask for the audit report though, their answer is basically... "Aww, shucks. Sorry, we can't let you see it. You actually have to pay for your own copy of it straight from the auditor, we can't let you see ours. And it's really expensive. Sorry about that."

If you ever could see the audit, and if it's even in English, it almost certainly was written by someone who doesn't have a clue what a Bitcoin is, and doesn't cover whether MtGox has USD and BTC to cover customer balances, it probably merely covers whether MtGox complies with some certain accounting standard and certifies that they filed some forms on time and in the proper format.

In other words, what I bet you WON'T see in the document: "We went through Tibanne's accounting records and discovered that they have liabilities of $X in the form of customer deposits, and as shown on the balance sheet and verified by bank statements, they have enough currency in their bank accounts to cover it."

And even MORE unlikely is a statement "We went through Tibanne's accounting records and discovered that they have liabilities of BTCX in the form of BTC customer deposits, and they signed messages for us proving that they own some certain addresses, and we verified ourselves on the block chain that they have all of the BTC they claim they have."

The audit I want to see would contain statements like that.

MtGox says getting such an audit is impossible or unfeasible due to cost, because according to them, they are a multinational conglomerate and any auditor would have to trot the globe just to confirm your money is there. They even told me that some of the bank accounts they use don't offer internet banking. (It's a multinational conglomerate kind of like Sony, but of course, if the website goes down while one guy is sleeping, it stays down for 4 hours until someone wakes him up! Go figure.)

As I own a business that has undergone such audits several times, I know these we-can't-get-an-audit claims are simply untrue. The first exchange or business who comes to the table with a SSAE 16 or comparable audit is going to be a major asset to the Bitcoin community.