Quote from: JorgeStolfi on May 12, 2014, 01:48:10 PM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on May 12, 2014, 09:20:17 AM

if NO one is contesting their balance, then the rest of your speculation does NOT matter. If customers agree that they had X amount of BTC and Y amount of Fiat, then what else is there to question?

Perhaps this will make things more clear:

Suppose there were only two clients, J and M.

In reality, when MtGOX collapsed, J had 200'000 BTC balance in his account, M had zero BTC, and MtGOX had 200'000 BTC in their wallets. Then if those 200'000 BTC were distributed proportional to the balances, J would get 200'000 BTC, M would get nothing.

But, according to the doctored database, J still had 200'000 BTC, M had 600'000 BTC. J checks the balance and says it is correct. Then MtGOX should have had 800'000 BTC in their wallets, but unfortunately 600'000 were stolen by invisible goblins so only 200'000 are left. Now, if those remaining 200'000 BTC were distributed proportional to the balances in that database, J would receive 50'000, and M would receive 150'000.

If MtGOX were liquidated by the court instead, the 200'000 BTC would be split between J and M according to their deposits and withdrawals, which are much harder to doctor since they can be checked against bank records and the blockchain. So perhaps J would get most of the 200'000 and M would get close to nothing.

Is that clear enough, or should I use a bigger font?

I will grant that you made a lot of good points here, and you articulated your points fairly well.... in picking out an area in which I may have overstated the case that customers' verifications of their deposits is a very important starting point. I will grant you that customer verifications is NOT the ending point, and partly based on the reasons that you stated.... I agree that if fraud could undermine the balances of the true stakeholders, then it would be best to identify those types of fraud, if they exist.

Quote from: JorgeStolfi on May 12, 2014, 01:48:10 PM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on May 12, 2014, 09:35:57 AM

at least, one can say you (and your team) seem to have a pretty good imagination.

Thanks for the compliment. It must have been my team-sized paranoid imagination that made me write that MtGOX was obviously insolvent (because it did everything that every insolvent company does), back when most seasoned bitcoin experts insisted that everything was fine. Because, one could not assume then that all (or a majority of) the MtGOX management and their improvised auditors had malicious motives.

Now you may be gloating a bit too much.

Accordingly, I am sure that you are NOT the only person who identified that there were potential problems with GOX and the GOX math was NOT adding up.