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Karpeles Confesses. All Your Bitcoins are Gone.

Last Updated
Neil Sardesai
Last Updated
a man in a suit and tie standing in front of microphones
Karpeles bowing in apology

Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles just came on Japanese TV channel Asahi News Network today and publicly apologised for the Gox disaster. According to various translations, Karpeles is “really sorry for causing trouble to all the people concerned…The 750,000 Bitcoins we kept for users, (37,000 million yen), are almost all gone.” That’s more than $400 million of Bitcoins lost due to what Karpeles describes as “weakness in the system.”

Furthermore, Mt. Gox is officially filing for bankruptcy protection, with an outstanding debt of over $60 million. Note that bankruptcy protection is not the same is bankruptcy. Corporations file for bankruptcy protection if they believe they can still recover with some time and restructuring, despite being in a financial disaster at the moment. Bankruptcy, on the other hand, means that financial recovery is impossible.

“We believe it is necessary, for the company and for the healthy growth of the bitcoin industry, to make efforts to rebuild ourselves while fulfilling accountability.”

-Mt. Gox

However, few believe that Gox can ever recover. According to Business Insider, “Federal investigators in both Japan and the U.S. have launched probes into possible criminal conduct .” Individuals such as William Banks, a website developer in Australia, are also pursuing legal action after losing hundreds of Bitcoins.

“It’s just such an astronomical amount of coins to lose.”

-William Banks

All things considered, it seems like Mt. Gox truly is dead, and no matter how sincerely Karpeles apologises or how deeply he bows, those 750,000 Bitcoins are gone.