Interview location: Skype
Interview date: Friday 22nd Feb, 2019
Company: Mt. Gox Legal
Role: Creator and Elected Administrator

The Mt. Gox story is incredibly complicated. The first Bitcoin exchange, created at a time when people would buy Bitcoin through eBay or forum discussions, and payment was sent with trust. When it launched it, Bitcoin was trading at $0.06, and within six months Jed McCaleb had passed it onto Mark Karpelès.

Three years after the sale the exchange collapsed when a suspected 850,000 Bitcoins were stolen. Since then the story has unravelled but remains complex, both in finding the truth and resolving what should happen to the remaining Bitcoin.

From the Jed to Mark and what happened with the sale and handover; with Coinlab and Brock Pierce’s claims; with the creditors, the lawyers and the Japanese legal system, finding the truth of what happened and what should happen is highly complex.

In this final interview in my series covering Mt. Gox, I talk to the journalist, Mt. Gox creditor and the creator and elected administrator of Mt. Gox Legal, Andy Pag. We reflect on my interviews and discuss the parties involved, the history of what happened between Jed and Mark, the claims by CoinLab and Brock Pierce and how this may all be resolved.

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Interview location: Skype
Interview date: Wednesday 13th Feb, 2019

Brock Pierce…hmmm…

A man with a questionable history in Bitcoin and wrapped up in the Mt. Gox story. With Gox Rising Brock has a plan to help creditors but what are his incentives? The creditors I have spoken to universally think he isn’t helping yet Brock claims to only want to help the creditors receive their civil rehabilitation and ensure Mark Karpelès gets nothing.

I’ll leave this interview out there for others to judge…

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Interview location: Skype
Interview date: Wednesday 20th Feb, 2019
Company: WizSec
Role: Chief Engineer

Mark Karpeles has had many accusations thrown at his since the collapse of Mt. Gox, including being the architect of the theft himself. Many people were angry with him at the time, and many still are, but as more information surfaces about the history of the exchange, a different picture has emerged.

Indeed, Mark made mistakes which cost users of the website hundreds of millions of dollars but is everything attributable to him. Kim Nilsson’s investigation into the chain of events surrounding the collapse of Mt. Gox highlights that Mark likely inherited an insolvent exchange and was unable to cope with the challenges of a rapidly expanding business under constant attack.

In this interview, I talk to Kim about his report, his opinions on the numerous hacks during the history of Mt. Gox and his views on Mark, Jed McCaleb, Brock Pierce and Peter Vessenes.

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Interview location: Skype
Interview date: Tuesday 12th Feb, 2019
Company: Chief Strategy Officer
Role: OceanEx

The victims of Mt. Gox are the creditors, those who lost their Bitcoin when the company entered into bankruptcy arrangements. For years they have battled for a fair civil rehabilitation plan and suffered delay after delay.

Under Japanese law, the creditors were due the Yen value off their holding at the date of bankruptcy, to be paid out from the 200,000 Bitcoins which were found by Mark Karpeles after first suspecting all the Bitcoin were gone.

The process of rehabilitation has been held up by the lawsuit from Peter Vessenes from Coinlab, and during the wait, the price of Bitcoin has risen sharply. Under Japanese law, after creditors have been paid, the remaining value in the company is due to the shareholders, this being Mark Karpeles (88%) and Jed McCaleb (12%), which would have made Mark a billionaire.

To their credit, neither Mark nor Jed wants to receive this money, and the creditors have fought to have the remaining Bitcoin redistributed to them. In this interview, I walk with the lawyer, Daniel Kelman, the architect of the civil rehabilitation plan for Mt.Gox creditors. We discuss this as well as the claims from Brock Pierce and Peter Vessenes.

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