Former Mt. Gox Says Bitcoin Worth Over $6 Billion Could Be Distributed Anytime; Karpeles Also Launching New Firm.

2014 witnessed the collapse of the largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox. The exchange collapsed after half a billion dollars worth of Bitcoins were stolen from the company in a hack.

Mark Karpeles, the former chief executive officer of Mt. Gox, applying the lesson learned is returning back and building a company. UNGOX aims to create the first comprehensive rating agency for the cryptocurrency exchange worldwide.

Along with the company’s launch, Karpeles will also provide an Mt. Gox non-fungible token (NFT) that would grant former customers a lifetime free access to the new website and service.

Mt. Gox was among the first Bitcoin exchanges globally and began automated trading on July 18, 2010. At one time, it even represented more than 80% of the global Bitcoin trading volume. After it was hacked, the company filed for bankruptcy on February 28, 2014, and lost most of its assets.

At the time of bankruptcy, there were around 200,000 Bitcoins with the exchange. These, as we know, today have increased in leaps and bounds in their value. It means that creditors from the bankruptcy period to now might be able to realize more value. The trustee sold around 50,000 Bitcoins for some US$600 million a few years back. Meanwhile, Karpeles shares that the rest of the Bitcoins can be distributed anytime now.

Interestingly, around 850,000 Bitcoins were found to be missing before Mt. Gox went through bankruptcy. Karpeles later recovered around 200,000 Bitcoin. The Japanese police started an investigation into the exchange, which Karpeles claims that he has cooperated fully with.

The Second Investigative Division, who headed the investigation from the middle, was highly pressured to tackle a case that was a risk to the political ambitions of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to make Tokyo a cryptocurrency trading capital and was not also tech-savvy, according to a detective in the Cyber Crimes Unit of The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. They concluded that Karpeles was the culprit. Then, the top authority of police decided that they would arrest him on the possible charges and would force him to confess the crime.

On August 1, 2015, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police White Collar Crimes Unit (Investigative Division 2) arrested Karpeles. The unit thought under the pressure of investigation, he would confess, but Karpeles didn’t budge. He suffered a jail period of a year just because he would not confess. Eventually, Karpeles was indicted on not one or two but three charges (in Japan for, those indicted have a conviction rate of 99 percent).

While Karpeles was spending his jail time, a task force of Japanese federal investigators and the US Internal Revenue Service, which included Tigran “The Blockchain Wizard” Gambaryan former special agent from the Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Cyber Crimes Unit in Washington, D.C, began an investigation to find out actual hacker.

A series of events later, a panel of judges declared him free of all charges after they found him innocent of the major charges of embezzlement and breach of trust in March of 2019. However, he was found guilty of mishandling electronic funds. But, his sentence for four years was dismissed.

What Is UNGOXED?

Not backing down by all this struggle, Karpeles is creating a new firm dubbed UNGOX, slightly different from the earlier term used for his cryptocurrency exchange failure.

UNGOX, scheduled to launch in early Q3 2022, will be giving information on existing crypto businesses and projects and their risk level. Based on a proprietary algorithm, the research of a team of dedicated staff, and Mark Karpeles’ experience of handling crypto businesses, a score with some details will be displayed for each service. Ratings will be absolutely free, though, with a subscription model, more detailed information can be accessed by the users, such as action alerts, changes in ratings, and a full history report with detailed scores

Andrew is a blockchain developer who developed his interest in cryptocurrencies while his post-graduation. He is a keen observer of details and shares his passion for writing along with being a developer. His backend knowledge about blockchain helps him give a unique perspective to his writing