Over $6 Billion in Lost Bitcoin From Mt.Gox Might Soon Return to Users

Quick take:

• Former CEO, Mark Karpeles, stated that the users of Mt. Gox could receive their lost BTC soon.
• The Japanese trustee will be responsible for returning the BTC.
• The calculated value of BTC held by the trustee stands at $6 billion.

Mark Karpeles, the former CEO of Mt. Gox, made the revelation in one of his recent interviews with Forkast news. Karpeles is back after a great fall that taught him a lot of lessons. 

His new company is called UNGOX, which will be the first comprehensive rating agency for cryptocurrency exchanges globally.

To demonstrate that he imbibed some valuable lessons from the fall, he is offering an NFT that will provide free lifetime access to its website and services.

The Mt. Gox incident in a nutshell

Mt. Gox, which once represented more than 80% of the global BTC trading volume, suffered a hack in 2014. The hack cost the company over 800,000 BTC, which left the customers startled and helpless.

Soon after the hack, the company filed for bankruptcy. Even though they lost most of their assets, they still had 200,000 bitcoins as a reserve. 

With the Bitcoin value increasing exponentially as compared to 2014, customers will be able to realize more than what they lost.

A few years back, they sold roughly 50,000 bitcoins. As of now, they hold the equivalent of approximately $6 billion at the current rate.

Karpeles is innocent

A presiding judge said at the trial that Karpeles had nothing to do with the missing bitcoins, and never intended to embezzle or harm the company. His sole mistake was installing a program that attempted to reclaim missing BTC since he took over the company in March 2011.

Detective agencies arrested Karpeles three times to crack him down, thinking that he was the culprit. He was held in jail without bail for almost a year. Later, after years of struggle, he was proved innocent of all major charges in 2019.