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Iconic ‘Mt. Gox, Where is Our Money?’ Sign Is Up for Auction
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.»
Circle, the U.S.-based stablecoin issuer, is going public.
The firm filed an S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday. If approved, the company’s stock will be trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol «CRCL.»
The company said its reserve income from managing its stablecoin-related reserves was $1.7 billion at the end of 2024, representing 99.1% of its total revenue.
Circle is behind USDC, the second largest stablecoin by market capitalization, with $60 billion in supply. The firm’s IPO has been one of the most anticipated in crypto.
It’s not the only crypto-adjacent company looking to go public. Artificial Intelligence (AI) firm CoreWeave (CRWV), which benefits from a strong business relationship with bitcoin mining firm Core Scientific (CORZ), started trading on the public market on March 28.
Bitcoin (BTC) purchases from video game retailer GameStop (GME) could be imminent or may have already begun after the company closed on its offering of $1.3 billion of five-year convertible notes.
The $200 million greenshoe option was fully exercised by the initial purchaser, bringing the total amount of the sale to $1.5 billion. Net proceeds to the company after fees were $1.48 billion, according to a filing Monday after the close of U.S. trading.
Alongside its fourth quarter earnings report last week, GameStop — led by its CEO Ryan Cohen — announced full board approval of an update to the company investment policy to add bitcoin to the GME balance sheet.
GME shares rose 1.35% during the regular session on Monday and are up another 0.8% in after hours action. Bitcoin remains modestly higher over the past 24 hours at $84,900.
CoreWeave (CRWV) shares rose more than 38% on their third day of trading debut after raising nearly $1.5 billion from its IPO following OpenAi’s announcement of a record-breaking $40 billion funding round on Monday.
The artificial intelligence (AI) startup went public on the Nasdaq exchange on Friday afternoon. The stock dropped below its IPO price to $39 and ended the day flat at $40 before dropping another 10% on Monday, its first full day of trading. CoreWeave’s IPO came at a time of strong anxiety and uncertainty in global markets, diminishing investor appetite and risk tolerance.
However, investor sentiment towards AI-related stocks seemed to have changed on Tuesday after AI powerhouse OpenAI announced on Monday that it had closed a $40 billion funding round, valuing the company at $300 billion. The move appears to have assured investors that there continues to be a strong appetite for AI companies, even in the current rough market.
This positive outlook has also spread to digital assets, as AI-related tokens were boosted on Tuesday. AI tokens, including Near Protocol (NEAR), Internet Computer (ICP), Bittensor (TAO) and Render (RENDER), were all up over 3% on Tuesday, with RENDER leading the group, trading 7.4% higher. The broader digital assets market, CoinDesk20 Index, also rose 3%.
Meanwhile, the shares of Core Scientific (CORZ), the bitcoin miner and data center with a large partnership with CoreWeave, have also risen more than 9% on Tuesday.
Stablecoin Giant Circle Files for IPO
GameStop Has $1.5B of Bitcoin Buying Power After Closing Convertible Note Sale
OpenAI’s $40B Raise Calms Market Jitters, Sends CoreWeave and AI Tokens Higher
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