Mt. Gox’s missing Bitcoins are expected to be distributed by the Japanese trustee for the fallen cryptocurrency exchange. In an exclusive interview with Jake Adelstein for Forkast, former CEO Mark Karpeles explains.
The world’s largest Bitcoin exchange at the time was hacked in 2014, and half a billion dollars worth of cryptocurrency was stolen.
Karpeles has returned, and in a bittersweet turn of events, he is establishing a firm based on the lessons he has learned.
UNGOX intends to be the first global rating agency for cryptocurrency exchanges, with Karpeles hoping to turn it become the Moody’s of the cryptocurrency sector.
Karpeles is also releasing an Mt. Gox non-fungible token (NFT) alongside the launch of the firm to prove that he’s learned from his mistakes. The NFT will allow previous clients lifelong free access to the new website and service.
The Mt.Gox incident in a nutshell
On July 18, 2010, Mt. Gox, one of the earliest Bitcoin exchanges in the world, began automated trading. It used to account for more than 80% of all Bitcoin trading volume.
The firm filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 28, 2014, after discovering it had been hacked and losing the majority of its assets.
However, the exchange had about 200,000 bitcoins before it went bankrupt.
These have gained in value tenfold after the bankruptcy, implying that creditors may be able to recover more value from the disaster than they lost during the bankruptcy.
While the trustee sold around 50,000 bitcoins for $600 million a few years ago, the remaining bitcoins are now worth over $6 billion and are expected to be distributed soon, according to Karpeles.
If it happens, it will be a pleasant conclusion for Mt. Gox and its creditors, as well as Karpeles. Karpeles’ story may not have ended well; he might have spent ten years in prison for crimes he didn’t commit.
Mt. Gox going bankrupt
The Japanese authorities had launched an inquiry into the exchange even before Mt. Gox went bankrupt on Feb. 28, 2014, with 850,000 bitcoins reported lost (200,000 of which were subsequently recovered by Karpeles).
Karpeles had nothing to do with the lost bitcoins and had never sought to damage the firm or steal cash, according to one of the presiding judges at the trial.
His only transgression was the installation of a program that attempted to recover lost BTC that the company had been saddled with since its acquisition in March 2011.