Food for Thought – Trade with MtGox…. and it’s gone

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Cartoon by Ryan Fletcher
Cartoon by Ryan Fletcher

Mark Karpelès, CEO of the collapsed Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, has been arrested by Japanese police. Mt Gox once was the world’s biggest exchange of bicoin, now it’s apparently insolvent.

Karpelès had “lost” 650,000 of his customers bitcoins (it was initially 850,000 however Karpelès found 200,000 bitcoin on a digital wallet). 850,000 bitcoins was roughly $390millionUS (it’s now $237,702,500US).

Can’t say I’ve been a huge bitcoin enthusiast, and folk like Karpelès are pretty much the type that give the crypto-currency a bad reputation in my view.

If found guilty of the charges against him for theft, Karpeles could face up to five years in prison, or a fine of up to 500,000 yen ($5522.30AU or 14.537433 bitcoins).

If Karpelès has trouble paying the fine in yen I wonder if they’ll accept bitcoin?

Food for thought.