Editors Note: This article comes fromEditors Note: This article comes fromBabbitt Information (ID: bitcoin8btc )coindesk, translated by Libert; the original text comes from
, author Nikhilesh De, reprinted with authorization by Odaily.
Recently, according to foreign media reports, a few weeks after announcing the Gox Rising plan, the famous cryptocurrency entrepreneur Pierce made an ambitious effort to unite the creditors of the long-collapsed exchange, submitting a civil recovery plan to restart Mt. .Gox exchange, it seems that his plans are really specific enough.
He also debated the feasibility and legality of his plan with former Mt. Gox CEO and major shareholder Mark Karpeles (nicknamed Fat Fat) on Twitter.
Gox Rising is an alternative to Mt. Gox bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayashis civil recovery efforts. The group behind the Gox Rising scheme posted a proposed plan on its website, outlining a series of goals to ensure creditors receive as much money as possible.
Two stand out from the plan: the proposal says that under the Gox Rising plan, the bitcoin in Mt. Goxs remaining assets will no longer be sold, and that equity holders will have no claim for any cash held by the trustee. .
Before the launch of the Gox Rising plan, the Mt.Gox exchange went through several years of bankruptcy proceedings. In 2014, the exchange went bankrupt after nearly 1 million bitcoins were stolen or disappeared (although about 200,000 were later recovered).
Before its fall, Mt Gox was the worlds first and at one time largest bitcoin exchange, accounting for about 70% of all transactions in the cryptocurrency at its peak. When it first announced the loss of customer funds, the price of bitcoin plummeted from $850 to $681, a drop of almost 20%. The exchange shutdowns did nothing to help the bear market turn, and over the next year, the bitcoin price fell well below $400, only to start recovering in 2015.
Last year, the Mt. Gox exchange shifted to a civil recovery process rather than outright bankruptcy, meaning creditors would receive proportional direct distributions of bitcoin rather than cash-equivalent compensation based on the price of bitcoin at the time the exchange collapsed.
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The Road to Mt. Gox Reopening
Key to the Gox Rising plan, Pierce said, is the creation of a central information repository for Mt. Gox creditors, ensuring they have accurate information about Mt Goxs civil recovery during the litigation process. He explained in an interview:
Gox Rising is a program or initiative to ensure creditors get what we believe is rightfully theirs. Its an organization that sifts through all the information related to the Mt Gox bankruptcy proceedings and aggregates it to let people know whats going on.
He told CoinDesk the plan began with the acquisition of the Mt. Gox brand. Gox Rising has yet to submit any acquisition bids, but Pierce said his organization has been working with Japans bankruptcy court to enforce oversight of the exchange. His original intention to acquire Mt. Goxs intangible assets, its domain name and brand, is pending court approval.
After that, Pierce has a three-part plan. The first part is to assess the remaining amount of fiat currency and bitcoin holdings, share this information with creditors, and distribute funds as soon as possible. The second part involves relaunching the exchange itself, giving creditors a level of ownership. Now for the most ambitious and final part so far: an effort to recover the 650,000 to 850,000 bitcoins that are still missing. Pierce said:
However, he gave no further details when asked whether his team had been successful so far in tracking down the missing bitcoins.
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Who will be the owner of Mt.Gox?
However, it remains a question of who actually owns the Mt.Gox platform and its assets.
As of early 2014, the exchanges two shareholders were Karpeles, who owned 88 percent of the company, and Jed McCaleb, who later became a co-founder of Ripple and Stellar Lumens, with the remaining 12 percent. Pierce claims he bought out both of their shares, but Karpelès insists that neither deal was legal.
As far as McCalebs stake is concerned, Karpeles believes that the sale of the stake would require the approval of the Japanese bankruptcy court. Pierce denies this. He added:
ed McCaleb thinks now we own this 12% stake, thats his position this week. It hasnt changed in the last five years, theres no dispute. The share sale was done before it went to court, so maybe the court side Only misinformation. If Jed McCaleb said yes, I havent owned these shares for five years, and yes, I sold them to Brock, the courts would say they can do whatever they want. Were just too lazy to file Thats all.
McCaleb did not respond to CoinDesks request for comment by press time.
While Karpeles did sign a letter of intent outlining the terms of a possible sale of his Mt Gox stake to Pierce, he later sent a second letter rescinding the first letter, citing the fact that no sale had been approved by the Tokyo District Court. A letter of intent. Pierce did not sign the second letter.
That said, Karpelès disputed Pierce’s tweet earlier this week that Karpelès was “aware” that he had sold his 88 per cent stake in Mt Gox to Pierce. Pierce also expressed uncertainty in an interview with CoinDesk, explaining that while his U.S. lawyers believe Pierce owns Karpelès’ stake in the exchange, he is awaiting confirmation from his Japanese lawyers.
Karpelès told CoinDesk via email that “the trustee has confirmed to me that the ownership of Mt Gox has not changed and remains the same as before,” meaning that Karpelès’ company Tibanne owns 88% of Mt Gox and Jed McCaleb owns another. 12% stake.
While Pierce insists he is the sole owner of Mt Gox, he has repeatedly stressed that we dont care who owns the equity in Mt Gox, only that creditors want 100% back of their funds.
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Mt.Gox Surplus Funding
Part of the fight is due to potential surplus funding, which could benefit shareholders. During the bull market of 2017, Mt. Goxs remaining bitcoins were sold at market prices, far more than they were worth while Gox was still in operation, creating the aforementioned surplus. The trustee stopped selling the bitcoins after Gox entered civil recovery proceedings.
As a result, Pierce told CoinDesk, Karpelès could get $700 million through Tibanne’s bankruptcy, since the bankruptcy trustee’s job is “to get that money.” He also repeated the claim online. He added:
We want to make sure Mark Karpeles doesnt get a penny.
Karpelès, on the other hand, said he does not expect to receive any funds through Tibannes bankruptcy. He said:
Expecting to receive funds from bankruptcy as a shareholder is generally nonsense, a possibility that arises only because of the unique circumstances surrounding the Mt. Gox bankruptcy.
Given that Mt. Gox is currently in civil recovery rather than bankruptcy proceedings, shareholders have absolutely no chance of receiving any funds.
Pierce acknowledged that changing circumstances could affect whether Karpelès receives any funding, saying:
The bankruptcy trustee has publicly stated that the owners of Mt. Gox will be entitled to any remaining funds... Now that Mt. Gox is in the civil rehabilitation phase, this may not be the case.
From our point of view it doesnt matter...Karpeles is the one who brought it up and he cares a lot because you know, he could be in prison for 10 years and his sentence is coming in March, I think he Would be more comfortable in prison because he has $700 million to his name, which is better than nothing.
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Will Mt. Gox issue coins in the future?
Still, if Pierce gains control of the Mt. Gox brand and domain name, he hopes to relaunch the platform through a buyout of creditors.
In an interview with CoinDesk, Pierce outlined how creditors would sign off on the deal and share in the exchanges profits. He said:
This time it will start with a contract, which will likely end up being a security token. I created my first security token at Blockchain Capital, I used to run a big top 10 syndicate on AngelList... I know security tokens pretty well.
He likened the possible token to the one Bitfinex issued after it was hacked in 2016. At the time, Bitfinex issued debt tokens to customers representing its losses and bought them back the following year.
In the future, the structure of the token may change (more similar to Binance’s BNB token), but details are still to be determined, Pierce said. But despite his plans, he said he didnt know when he might make the bid, though he hoped for a clearer timeline in the coming days.
He said the reason for the delay was that he had lawyers in the United States and Japan trying to coordinate the matter. Although Pierce hopes to submit his bid for the Mt Gox domain name as soon as possible, the huge time zone difference is slowing down the process considerably. As for the ongoing civil recovery efforts, Pierce hopes that the bankruptcy trustees current plan will cover all the important things, he added:
Therefore, we have no reason to submit a crowdfunding (CR) plan unless we have reason to believe that the plan will not give creditors what they are entitled to. The only reason to start a CR program is if there is a problem with it.
Karpelès was less confident about Pierces motives, saying he doubted Pierce would get any benefit himself. In particular, Pierce argued that shareholders would get some form of earnings payment, which led Karpelès to believe that Pierce was hiding something, and that it could be detrimental to creditors. Karpelès says:
