Mt Gox CEO Mark Karpeles (2nd L) attends a news conference at the Tokyo District Court in Tokyo on Friday night. Mt Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday, saying it may have lost all of its investors' virtual coins due to hacking into its faulty computer system. Karpeles, wearing a suit instead of his customary T-shirt, bowed and apologized in Japanese for the company's collapse, blaming "a weakness in our system."
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19 Comments
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minello7
That smug smile tells another story. Take a look at that expression and tell me there is not a lie hiding behind it.
SenseNotSoCommon
blunderstatement
HongoTAFEinmate
Wonder if this chap retains his passport. I know he ain't been charged with anything, but considering the sums involved some folks might worry about him disappearing.
Greeneggsnospam
"A weakness in our system" Hah. The Bitcoin code is always updated and other exchanges seem to be doing fine. More than anything The possibility that they've been silently laundering the said coins and gaming the system seems more plausible.
StormR
Mugs game, can't touch don't trust it and I agree even before I read the comments I thought he was a smug looking POS.
Sensato
I am fascinated by the idea of virtual currencies, but clearly they are only as good as the exchanges that hold investors' funds.
Given the huge amount that has gone missing and the number of years involved in its disappearance, Mt Gox lacked obviously any and all safeguards that would be considered normal with a financial firm handling 'real' money — no regular audits, sound governance structure or internal controls — a situation made possible by the Wild West mentality of Bitcoin overall.
This time around it is Mt Gox, but I would guess that other Bitcoin firms operate using similar practices, making it highly likely that another Bitcoin exchange will hit the front pages in the near future. I wouldn't sock my savings away in Bitcoin quite yet.
combinibento
The fact that this "exchange" was born from a forum where geeks traded magic cards should have set off some red flags long ago, big time. This Karpeles dude was waaaay in over his head from the get go (the fact that he is still in Japan and didn't flee indicates, to me at least, he didn't mastermind this crime, if it was indeed a crime). While he is indeed a smug little punk, I was happy to see that his standard "Sorry to have caused everyone so much trouble" looked just as empty of sincerity as when all those oyaji do it after their own corporate blunders.
globalwatcher
http://signups.wallstreetdaily.com/X303Q220
Hope Japanese Justice Department has retained his passport for possible criminal indictment.
nath
I read a fairly involved article about what happened. It appears that the bug was in the system that he created, for people to withdraw money from bitcoin to their Japanese bank accounts. He had security holes in the system, allowing people to withdraw funds twice (or more)? And due to inefficient company management, having no accounting staff on hand, they didn't realize that they were losing money until the money was all gone. If the above is true, and it appears to be, at best he is guilty of sloppy management. Whoever withdrew money multiple times however is guilty of a crime, by making multiple withdrawls of the same bitcoin, they have perpetuated fraud/theft, and apparently at an amount of millions of dollars. The question is whether or not they can and will be tracked down.
Greeneggsnospam
Bitcoin code already has inherent locks to avoid "double payment" like all other cryptocurrencies now. Tracing these coins must be done through the Bitcoin blockchain and compare to Gox's own records but it will take a lot of time to prove they laundered and/or squandered customer's coins.
JanesBlonde
“a weakness in our system.” - Mark Karpeles
Yes it is called GREED AND DISHONESTY.
GalapagosnoGairaishu
Janes@, I heartily agree with you, but would add that customers bent on making a quick killing in the market are greedy and foolish. And you know the saying about fools and their money.
JoeBigs
Someone made off with a whole lot of cash.
Bitcoin investments remind me of the beanie baby crazy. In the end folks were left holding worthless stuffed toys.
GW
I dont know whether to laugh or laugh about all this haha!
slumdog
I still do not get why anyone would prefer this fake currency to real currency.
I saw the press conference on TV and although I was in the other room when he did his bow instructed by who I believe is the lawyer to the right of him. He attempted to mimic a sincere bow and then the lawyer whispers to him that he has bowed enough, signaling him to apologize. In Japanese, he makes a mistake and says that the bitcoins "居なくなった". Meaning that a person has disappeared rather than something disappearing "なくなった”. Unless it is a Freudian slip that this guy is planning to disappear, too.
TorafusuTorasan
I would suggest that Mr. Karpeles avoid calling his next virtual currency product "Son of a Bit Coin." No need to stir up bad memories among investors.
LBW2010
His Japanese seemed superb...half-Japanese?
gogogo
This guy needs to go to jail, Gox was hacked 2 years ago and 800K stolen, told no one about it, continued to operate lke nothing had happened, then lied about bitcoin having a security problem when the s**t hit the fan.
He's not even sorry he was quoted as saying "it was a wild ride"