Karpeles goes free – but the story isn’t over
Have we seen an end to the saga, as the former MtGox CEO will not serve time on data manipulation charges?
Mark Karpeles, the who presided over the MtGox debacle that saw 850,000 BTC of customers’ money lost, will not serve additional time over embezzlement and data manipulation charges. At the end of last week, Karpeles was found innocent of stealing customer funds. While he was found guilty of trying to hide the losses, he received only a suspended sentence – meaning he will not be going back to prison unless he commits another crime in the next four years.
‘I am happy to be judged not guilty for embezzlement and breach of trust,’ Karpeles said in a statement. ‘I will discuss with my lawyers and decide how to proceed on the remaining charge.’
The verdict came as a surprise, since the Japanese legal system typically would not allow a case to progress to court unless there was a high chance of conviction. The court implicitly confirms Karpeles’ narrative that hackers stole the money from Gox.
Will this prove the end of the Gox saga? Maybe not. Customers still have to be made whole using the remainder of the 200,000 BTC found by Karpeles in an ‘old format’ wallet after the exchange collapsed. Plus there is the Gox Rising movement that seeks to revive the exchange. This group of creditors who lost money on Gox has several aims, including maximising the ‘speed, certainty, and size of creditor recovery’. This is part of a wider initiative by Brock Pierce, a well-known figure in the crypto world, to take control of the defunct exchange and relaunch it. Pierce claims that in March 2014, shortly after MtGox collapsed, he purchased the company from Karpeles. Karpeles has not confirmed this.
In short, Karpeles may be out, but the shadow cast by Gox is long, and money does strange things to people. We haven’t yet seen the end of this.
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