Mark Karpelès

Chief Executive Officer · Representative Director

Representative director and chief executive of MtGox Co., Ltd., the Tokyo bitcoin exchange that filed for civil rehabilitation in February 2014.

Mark Karpelès signed MtGox Co., Ltd.'s application for civil rehabilitation at the Tokyo District Court on 28 February 2014 as the company's representative director, giving the company's address in Shibuya, Tokyo. That filing is the primary record of the collapse: it set out assets of JPY 3,841,866,163 against current liabilities of JPY 6,501,119,371 and reported that roughly 850,000 bitcoin had disappeared, most of it customer deposits.

He was arrested in Tokyo in 2015 and charged. On 15 March 2019 the Tokyo District Court found him guilty of falsifying the company's electronic records to inflate its recorded holdings, and sentenced him to two and a half years in prison, suspended for four years. The same court acquitted him of embezzlement and aggravated breach of trust, the charges on which prosecutors had asked for a ten-year sentence. He said afterwards that he was "happy to be judged not guilty for embezzlement and breach of trust" and would discuss the remaining conviction with his lawyers.

Newsletter

Bitcoin, without the noise

What happened in Bitcoin, what it actually changes, and the sources so you can check us. One issue at a time, straight to your inbox.

  • One email per issue, never a drip campaign
  • No tracking pixels and no shared addresses
  • Unsubscribe from any issue in one click

Get the next issue

One email per issue, no tracking pixels, and unsubscribe from any of them. We do not share your address. Privacy policy