Hi Everyone,
This is our first update since we started the website. The response has been overwhelming. Our site
http://www.mtgoxrecovery.com now represents over 20% of all MtGox claims and is still growing rapidly. This is great for several reasons, but first I would like to share some more information about who is behind this site.
My name is Olivier Janssens, I recently received some press by taking the first flight paid for with bitcoins(*) I have been an early miner since 2010, and (still) believe Bitcoin is the greatest invention since the Internet. This is the currency of the People, and will allow us to regain much freedom, and enhance our way of doing business together in ways that we have never seen before. Unfortunately, as part of the growth process, some of the rotten apples have to be weeded out. In this case the apple was quite big.
I personally lost over $5 million USD in this debacle, due to Mark Karpeles stating to me personally that large amounts of Bitcoins could be sold on his exchange without any issues. After 3 months of trying to (unsuccessfully) extract my money, I started preparing a lawsuit. This was about three weeks ago, and around the time the first protestor arrived at their office because MtGox had stopped sending Bitcoins under the excuse of the malleability bug.
Mark knew I was a major stake holder in the Bitcoin community, and we discussed solutions for 3 hours to try to resolve this. At that time he kept telling me he could only send me a very limited amount per month, due to anti money laundering issues. Obviously, this was a lie.
MtGox was already insolvent at that time and likely was long before then. Mark had lured me (and many others) into sending over millions worth of Bitcoins so he could continue whatever scam or scheme he was running. However, I decided that I would not take MtGox down with my lawsuit (I was ready to have their bank account blocked and start criminal charges against Karpeles personally).
The reason why I didn’t proceed with that course of action was because I wanted to protect the community from being harmed by taking down its oldest exchange. So I decided to take Mark’s word that he really had anti money laundering issues, and bought back in. In the end I walked away with a mere 20% of my original investment (bitcoinbuilder).
This was a huge loss, but I still have Bitcoins left. There are many people who have lost their entire life savings due to Mark Karpeles’s criminal behaviour. Personally, I do not believe that the coins were leaked through a bug. I believe this scheme has been going for much longer. Mark will be investigated for his potential crimes. He is in Japan and the legal team I have on this case have assured me that he is unable to leave the country due the chapter 11 filing.
This brings us to our progress so far. In the last days we have been working hard on assembling evidence from people who have been ripped-off by Mark in one way or another. Not just by depositing coins on the exchange, but by false promises made by him personally. If you have any such story where you communicated to him personally and where he gave you guarantees, please forward it to
contact@mtgoxrecovery.com. Any additional evidence which might help prove that Mark is behind this is very welcome. If you have other evidence that would show something different, please send it to us also. We are making a timeline of events, and a very clear document, and will be communicating this together with any other info we gather to the police.
Meanwhile, we have also started some initiatives like
http://www.projectgox.com - an idea that will start a community based bitcoin exchange, where all the people that lost money in MtGox become shareholders and take part in the profits. We think that the Bitcoin community is extremely strong and resilient, and that we look out for each other. This is what makes us strong.
So far I have been funding this whole lawsuit personally, and I do not want to take donations because I think everyone has lost enough. I believe Bitcoin is too important to have something like MtGox kill this valuable community.
We will grow from this and become much stronger than before. Together, we will try to make right what was done wrong, and start initiatives to make people whole again. We will soon reach over 50% of the Plaintiffs, and this will allow us to take control of the former MtGox.
I welcome any ideas on how to monetize this again so we can start making back what we lost. In the next days I will bring forward the best ideas we have received, and then we can all vote on how we wish to move ahead. I do not have much hope on recovering any ‘stolen’ bitcoins, but we will do our very best to investigate this to the fullest extent of the law, to find out exactly what happened, and to bring those responsible to justice.
Regards,
Olivier Janssens
(*)
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-millionaire-olivier-janssens-private-jet-privatefly/
