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That's amazing. He screwed up and lost so much of the customers' money the company so much they had to go into bankruptcy, which pegged the company's debts at t

That's amazing. He screwed up and lost so much of the customers' money the company so much they had to go into bankruptcy, which pegged the company's debts at the bitcoin-to-yen rate of 2014. The company has over 200,000 bitcoins. So the rise in value of bitcoin has made Mt Gox extremely valuable in bankruptcy (possibly more valuable than if it were properly managed from the beginning) and now Mark Karpeles is a billionaire. Is that a correct understanding?

charlesdm 9y ago
Yes.
- chris_wot 9y ago
  The fact that this needs to be said on the first comment is, to my mind, remarkable and why I've never been a fan of Bitcoin: "Good luck going forward. Considering that you could probably single handedly crash bitcoin with what you have in your wallet... Uh... Please don't?"
  - TremendousJudge 9y ago
    turns out that if you build something that requires zero trust, you end up not being able to trust anybody. who knew
  - sametmax 9y ago
    He already did: https://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-trustee-sells-400-million-bitcoin-bitcoin-cash/ https://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-trustee-sells-400-million-bi... The market was recovering from the crash when this happened, and it went down the toilet again right after that. Funnily it recovered (to die soon after again), but we have seen the Mt Gox weight in action already.
  - bbctol 9y ago
    Bitcoin's caused some hilarious lessons in what "decentralized" actually means. Bitcoin isn't controlled by some nasty evil central bank; it gets to be controlled by a mostly random collection of maybe intelligent and definitely lucky people with no oversight whatsoever.
tmountain 9y ago
That sums it up as far as I can tell. The narrative of, "I don't want/deserve this huge windfall I'm receiving is beyond absurd." The solution seems pretty simple. Compensate those who suffered losses because of the mistakes your business made. Duh.
- lis 9y ago
  He says that he would like to do so, but can't, because he doesn't have access to the coins: "I don't have control over the Bitcoins in the MtGox estate, however myself as well as many creditors are pushing for the trustee not to sell until a decision is reached for civil rehabilitation." and "The trustee was appointed by the bankruptcy court and I have no control over this process at this point. I only wish to see bitcoins returned to all MtGox creditors as soon as possible."
mikeash 9y ago
If you can believe what he wrote here, he’s not happy with how this turned out and he’s working to make the customers as whole as he can. If so I have to respect the guy at least a bit, since it sounds like he could pretty easily walk away from this as astoundingly wealthy man, all legally acquired.
pera 9y ago
That's just for the bankruptcy case. There are other cases/class actions on the way.
- piker 9y ago
  Bankruptcy in the US (which is of course different than Japanese bankruptcy) may discharge those contingent liabilities as well, IIRC from law school.
thisisit 9y ago
> So the rise in value of bitcoin has made Mt Gox extremely valuable in bankruptcy (possibly more valuable than if it were properly managed from the beginning) and now Mark Karpeles is a billionaire. Yes it has made MtGox valuable but not made Mark Karpeles a billionaire. I can't speak for Japanese law but bankruptcies normally have an overseer, in this case a trustee. They control the assets of the bankrupt companies and decide on how the creditors are paid. Creditors include customers, Mark Karpeles, his investors and debtors, if any. So, customers can still approach the MtGox trustee about the payment. To reiterate I am not a lawyer, but in most cases they might be able to file a suit against the MtGox estate too.
acdanger 9y ago
He's stated he that he intends to avoid the outcome that ends with him becoming a billionaire. https://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-ceo-dont-want-bankrupt-bitcoin-exchanges-billions/ https://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-ceo-dont-want-bankrupt-bitco...

charlesdm 9y ago

Yes.

chris_wot 9y ago
The fact that this needs to be said on the first comment is, to my mind, remarkable and why I've never been a fan of Bitcoin: "Good luck going forward. Considering that you could probably single handedly crash bitcoin with what you have in your wallet... Uh... Please don't?"
- TremendousJudge 9y ago
  turns out that if you build something that requires zero trust, you end up not being able to trust anybody. who knew
- sametmax 9y ago
  He already did: https://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-trustee-sells-400-million-bitcoin-bitcoin-cash/ https://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-trustee-sells-400-million-bi... The market was recovering from the crash when this happened, and it went down the toilet again right after that. Funnily it recovered (to die soon after again), but we have seen the Mt Gox weight in action already.
- bbctol 9y ago
  Bitcoin's caused some hilarious lessons in what "decentralized" actually means. Bitcoin isn't controlled by some nasty evil central bank; it gets to be controlled by a mostly random collection of maybe intelligent and definitely lucky people with no oversight whatsoever.

tmountain 9y ago

That sums it up as far as I can tell. The narrative of, "I don't want/deserve this huge windfall I'm receiving is beyond absurd." The solution seems pretty simple. Compensate those who suffered losses because of the mistakes your business made. Duh.

lis 9y ago
He says that he would like to do so, but can't, because he doesn't have access to the coins: "I don't have control over the Bitcoins in the MtGox estate, however myself as well as many creditors are pushing for the trustee not to sell until a decision is reached for civil rehabilitation." and "The trustee was appointed by the bankruptcy court and I have no control over this process at this point. I only wish to see bitcoins returned to all MtGox creditors as soon as possible."

mikeash 9y ago

If you can believe what he wrote here, he’s not happy with how this turned out and he’s working to make the customers as whole as he can. If so I have to respect the guy at least a bit, since it sounds like he could pretty easily walk away from this as astoundingly wealthy man, all legally acquired.

pera 9y ago

That's just for the bankruptcy case. There are other cases/class actions on the way.

piker 9y ago
Bankruptcy in the US (which is of course different than Japanese bankruptcy) may discharge those contingent liabilities as well, IIRC from law school.

thisisit 9y ago

> So the rise in value of bitcoin has made Mt Gox extremely valuable in bankruptcy (possibly more valuable than if it were properly managed from the beginning) and now Mark Karpeles is a billionaire. Yes it has made MtGox valuable but not made Mark Karpeles a billionaire. I can't speak for Japanese law but bankruptcies normally have an overseer, in this case a trustee. They control the assets of the bankrupt companies and decide on how the creditors are paid. Creditors include customers, Mark Karpeles, his investors and debtors, if any. So, customers can still approach the MtGox trustee about the payment. To reiterate I am not a lawyer, but in most cases they might be able to file a suit against the MtGox estate too.

acdanger 9y ago

He's stated he that he intends to avoid the outcome that ends with him becoming a billionaire. https://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-ceo-dont-want-bankrupt-bitcoin-exchanges-billions/ https://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-ceo-dont-want-bankrupt-bitco...