The podcast What Bitcoin Did from U.K.-based bitcoin and cryptocurrency trader and blogger Peter McCormick recently completed a series of interviews on the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox.
Mt. Gox collapsed in 2014 after filing for bankruptcy protection after 850,000 Bitcoins were stolen. At the time it was valued at more than $450 million and at current Bitcoin prices would be valued at more than $3.3 billion. Eventually more than 200,000 of those lost Bitcoins were found and will be returned to creditors after a civil rehabilitation process is completed in the Japanese courts.
The series tries to get answers to questions about what happened, who was responsible for the collapse and exactly how the exchange lost 850,000 Bitcoins. The series’ first interview is with the original founder Jed McCaleb and goes into details on the origin story of Mt. Gox, his experience running the exchange’s ultimate decision to sell it to Mark Karpeles.
Mark Karpeles purchased the Mt. Gox exchange from MaCaleb in 2011 and was the CEO at the time of the collapse. McCormick and Karpeles discuss his responsible for the multiple hacks that occurred, and what was delaying the repayment of creditors’ funds.
Interviews with Daniel Kelman, a lawyer for a group of creditors and the architect of the civil rehabilitation, and Kim Nilsson, author of the report Cracking Mt. Gox, provide an outside historical perspective of the process creditors have gone through the last 4 years, the investigation into the collapse, and the legal process in Japanese courts.
The most controversial interview of the series is with child star and Bitcoin investor Brock Pierce. McCormick grills Pierce about his intentions of reviving the Mt. Gox exchange. Pierce insists all he wants to do is make sure the creditors are repaid and make sure Karpeles doesn’t receive any money. In the final interview of the series McCormick speaks with Andy Pag, a reporter, creditor, and elected leader of Mt. Gox Legal. They talk about how the hack happened, who is responsible and his role in how this may all be resolved.