Former CEO of Mt. Gox, Mark Karpeles is among the most controversial names when it comes to the world of cryptocurrencies. While some see him as a man who pulled off an 860,000 BTC scam - others believe him to be a victim of circumstances. The former Mt. Gox CEO now has a new job - as the CTO of the London Trust Media.
Back when Mt. Gox was hacked, Karpeles had become one of the most hated names in cryptocurrencies as he took the entire blame for the exchange going down. 4 years and some jail time later, Karpeles is out on bail - and has slowly begun to return to the public eye.
Denver based London Trust Media deals with cryptocurrency investments - but is particularly known for handling the biggest VPN network worldwide. London Trust Media owns a number of VPN companies which together form this giant VPN network. They have invested in a number of cryptocurrencies and crypto-related firms such as zcash, purse.io and blockexplorer among others.
Karpeles will work remotely for the London Trust Media. While he is out on bail at the moment, his troubles are far from being over. He is currently under trial over the charges of embezzlement, and the odds are against him because there is a 99% conviction rate in Japan in these charges.
In a recent Fortune story, it was revealed that Karpeles, who at one point of time would leave his laptop at a park bench and wander around - is now afraid to even leave his bag on the ground while being photographed, afraid that it might get stolen. Karpeles leads a hard life in Japan - where he has to change apartments every few months, concerned about his safety.
In a recent Reddit Ask Me Anything session, Mark Karpeles explained that he is not the villain that people portray him to be. This was a brave move from the former Mt Gox CEO. He said that once everything is done with, the Mt Gox settlement case is likely to award him $1 Billion as he was a majority stakeholder of the company. However, Karpeles has stated that he does not want those billion dollars - as they belong to those who had thought that their Bitcoins were safe with Mt. Gox.
The Mt Gox hack was the biggest incident of a cryptocurrency exchange being hacked till the Coincheck hack came around earlier this year. 850,000 Bitcoins were lost in the Mt Gox hacks in 2014, evaluated worth $473 Million at the time. Eventually, 200,000 Bitcoins were recovered - which are now being sold off by the Mt Gox trustee to recover the losses of those who had stored their bitcoins on Mt Gox - and the remainder of the amount would go to stakeholders of the exchange.
Andrew Lee, the co-founder and chairman of London Trust Media has stated that he looks forward to helping Karpeles move on to this new chapter in his life after Mt Gox. “I am more than willing to give a second chance to Mark in this fight’s critical hour,” Lee said.