One cold February morning in 2014, Kolin Burges stood outside Mt. Gox’s Tokyo office, clutching a handwritten cardboard sign and demanding answers from the bitcoin exchange’s CEO, Mark Karpeles, about his missing tokens.

Eleven years later, the iconic sign, emblematic of crypto’s first major financial scandal, is being auctioned on Scare.City with a reserve price of 4.5 BTC ($383,000). The sale starts later Friday and ends April 3.

«At the time, it didn’t even cross my mind it could become valuable,» Burges said in an interview with CoinDesk in Hong Kong. «I thought maybe I’d write a book someday, but the sign itself never seemed important. It’s remarkable how things have evolved.»

Burges had flown from London to Tokyo after Mt. Gox, then the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, mysteriously froze withdrawals.

«I woke up one morning and knew I had to go to Tokyo,» Burges recalled. «I didn’t really have a detailed plan. I just knew I had to be there.

«When the withdrawal didn’t arrive, I started feeling this growing sense of dread. At first, I wasn’t 100% sure, but as time went on, it became increasingly clear something was very wrong.»

His impromptu protest quickly gained international media attention, even attracting the notice of mainstream financial press like the Wall Street Journal.

Burges recalled those initial days in Tokyo as dreamlike and almost otherworldly.

«The moment I confronted Karpeles was intense,» he remembered. «I demanded answers, but he just brushed me off, blaming technical issues. It felt surreal, standing there in the snow, knowing something major was unfolding.»

As Burges protested outside Mt. Gox’s offices, the exchange’s attempts to mitigate the public fallout became increasingly evident.

«Mt. Gox kept dangling hope, but everyone could see the situation spiraling out of control,» Burges said. «They even invited us inside to protest privately. Anything to remove us from public view. It was ridiculous and desperate.»

Burges recalls how over drinks, someone from Mt. Gox, whom he declined to name, privately pressured him to cut it out.

«At one point, Mt. Gox representatives met me secretly, warning that continued protests would cause the exchange to collapse and everyone would lose their bitcoins,» he said. «That conversation made it clear they knew more than they admitted, and the situation was far worse than publicly acknowledged.»

Then, Burges recollects, one representative tried paying for their drinks with a Mt. Gox credit card — and it was declined.

«It was an ominous sign their banking relationships were unraveling,» Burges said.

Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy in February 2014, days after Burges started his protest.

Seven years later, Karpeles was found innocent of embezzlement in a Tokyo court, while receiving a suspended sentence for manipulating data.

Last September, Karpeles set up a new crypto exchange, EllipX. He also established a crypto ratings company called Ungox in 2022.

In an interview with CoinDesk on the sidelines of Korea Blockchain Week in August 2024, Karples said that if he had modern blockchain analytical tools in 2014, and third-party custodians, Mt. Gox «wouldn’t have happened.»

The U.K.’s crypto industry has just over 12 months to prepare for an even stricter regulatory regime, a senior official with the country’s finance regulator said.

Matthew Long, director of payments and digital assets at the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), told CoinDesk in an interview that the «impending gateway regime» that is earmarked for 2026 will in fact be a new authorization regime for crypto companies.

«We will have a gateway which will allow authorization. But obviously we’ve got to go through those consultations, create those rules and get the legislation for that to take place,» Long said.

This regime will be a leap from the current anti-money laundering (AML) one. Firms like crypto exchanges Coinbase, Gemini and Bitpanda will move away from just needing to register with the country to comply with anti-money laundering rules to an authorization regime with rules for a suite of offerings. This will require them to go through a fresh process to secure approval from the FCA.

The FCA intends to release papers on stablecoins, trading platforms, staking, prudential crypto exposure and more this year. The regime is expected to go live after final policy papers are published in 2026, Long said.

Since its anti-money laundering register for firms opened in 2020, the FCA received 368 applications from firms wishing to comply, but only 50 firms — 14% of applicants — have been approved so far. Many firms may have to start again.

Read more: U.K. Financial Regulator Aims for Crypto Regime by 2026

Regulated activities

Upcoming legislation will define what counts as a regulated activity, the FCA’s Long said. Companies that engage in those activities will need to seek authorization.

In 2023 the former U.K. government released papers that said regulated activities would likely include crypto and fiat-referenced stablecoins issuance as well as payment, exchange and lending activities.

Stablecoins will no longer be brought under the U.K. payments regulations as set out in previous work, former Economic Secretary Tulip Siddiq said in November. The FCA plans to consult on draft rules for stablecoins early this year.

«What we’re doing in terms of the stablecoins is we’re making sure that we take the best from the current regulation that exists in TradFi, but stablecoins are ultimately unique,» Long said. «There isn’t anything that is exactly the same. We’ve got to adapt the regulation that we’ve currently got.»

Read more: UK to Draft a Regulatory Framework for Crypto, Stablecoins Early Next Year

Transition

The FCA is still deciding on the process crypto companies will need to go through to get authorized, Long said.

Long added that it was undecided what steps those who are already registered in the money laundering regime will need to take but the new regime will come with wider permissions,» so we’d expect that if you wanted the further permissions, you’d apply for them.»

Therefore companies may need to go through a lengthy registration process — even if they’ve already secured an existing license.

«We’ll be communicating with firms about what the gateway will look like before it goes live, our intention is to bring it live as soon as humanly possible,» Long said referring to the authorization regime.

In formulating how it intends to move forward, the regulator plans to also look at Europe which has launched bespoke legislation for the crypto sector and the International Organization of Securities Commissions’ 18 recommendations. IOSCO will soon be publishing a piece on how countries are progressing with its standards, someone familiar with the matter said.

«It’s a case of understanding and looking for best practice,» Long said.

Read more: UK Crypto Firms and Regulator Blame Each Other for Industry Exodus

Dogecoin (DOGE), ether (ETH) and xrp (XRP) sank more than 5% in early Asian hours as traders took profits on a relief rally earlier in the week, with eyes on the U.S. personal consumption expenditure (PCE) figures scheduled for release later Friday.

Crypto majors tracked by the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20) showed a 4.5% slide on average, led by DOGE at 7%. Toncoin’s TON was the only token in the top-20 by market capitalization in the green with a 5% rise in the past 24 hours.

Gold surged to fresh highs Friday with a jump above $3,109 in Asian morning hours, continuing a stellar rise since early March. The MSCI World Index had its longest losing streak in a month, per Bloomberg, while a regional gauge of Asian equities was poised for its biggest drop since Feb. 28.

Over $12.2 billion worth of bitcoin (BTC) options will expire with max pain at $85,000 later Friday.

“Spot is trading sideways and OI continues to bleed lower, signalling a broad lack of near-term optimism in the market,” traders at Singapore-based QCP Capital said in a Telegram broadcast. “With the PCE Index data due tomorrow, we believe any short-term upside remains capped as markets wait for clarity from Trump’s next move in this escalating trade war.”

The PCE index captures inflation (or deflation) across a wide range of consumer expenses and reflects changes in consumer behavior.

Released monthly, the PCE is said to influence Fed interest rate decisions. High PCE readings signal rising inflation, potentially prompting rate hikes to cool the economy, which can reduce risk appetite and pressure bitcoin prices downward as investors favor safer assets.

Conversely, low PCE data suggests tame inflation, possibly leading to rate cuts or steady policy, boosting liquidity and supporting Bitcoin’s price as a speculative asset or inflation hedge.

The next release is on March 28 and could sway market sentiment, with bitcoin’s reaction tied to how the data shapes Fed expectations — volatility often follows as traders adjust positions.

Markets have been heavy since Thursday as President Donald Trump warned of deeper tariffs on Canada and the European Union in case the two collude and policies impact U.S. economic activity. In turn, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said late Thursday the country would move rapidly to trade more with other countries as the U.S. was “no longer a reliable partner.”

“The global market is highly sensitive to monetary policies set by major economies, particularly the United States,” Innokenty Isers, Chief Executive Officer at Paybis, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message. “With its relatively higher volatility, risk-averse investors may favor alternative inflation hedges instead of Bitcoin.”

“Considering the longer stretch of the trade war and the potential inflation that will emerge, capital allocation to BTC as a hedge against economic instability might be reduced,” Isers warned.