Post
Topic
Board Speculation
Re: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion
by
JorgeStolfi
on 25/02/2014, 14:04:01 UTC
Why would somebody actually buy Gox right now ? It is a bad investment. Their brand is worth $-1 right now.

A million or whatever customer base, who want to continue trading? Must be worth alot.
Im just looking for errors in my above statement, really. Trying to learn something.

Folks, again, the clients of an exchange are its main liabilities, not its assets.  If a client has a balance of 1000 USD or 100 BTC in his account, it means that MtGOX owes those amounts to that client; and anyone who buys MtGOX will be buying those debts.

The sum of those debts for MtGOX, in BTC and national currencies, has been estimated as a billion dollars or more.  No one knows for sure, since MtGOX has never released those numbers.

In fact no one knows how many active clients (who, say, trade at least once a month) MtGOX had two months ago.  My guess (with no factual basis, just a feeling) is less than 10,000.