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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.»
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Chart of the Week: ‘Dire Picture’ for BTC Miners as Revenue Flatlines Near Record Low

Hashprice, a key metric used to gauge miner revenue, is currently hovering near a five-year low, according to HashRate Index—a stark reminder of how difficult the mining business has become.
In simple terms, the metric is the income miners can expect per unit of computing power, denoted by per petahash (PH/s). It can be denominated in U.S. dollars or BTC, although it’s most commonly quoted in USD for practical comparison.
At present, hashprice sits at $44.00 PH/s, only slightly above its August 2024 low, when bitcoin reached $49,000 amid the yen carry trade unwind. Currently, bitcoin is trading around $84,000.
Despite the higher BTC price, miner revenue is dwindling, which paints a dire picture of the mining industry as a whole after the recent halving event cut the rewards by half. Rising competition, higher mining difficulty, lower transaction revenue, and spiking energy costs have added more pressure to the revenue.
However, it’s not all bad. At around $44.00 PH/s levels, depending on what type of mining machines miners are using, miners can still be near or at breakeven, although far from 2021’s mining bull run.
Looking ahead, deteriorating market conditions, stagnant bitcoin prices, and geopolitical uncertainty, such as potential tariffs affecting mining operations, could create further headwinds for the industry.
This is reflected in the performance of the Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI), which is down 50% year-to-date while BTC fell about 10%, underscoring the challenging environment facing the mining sector.
It makes sense that miners are increasingly pivoting into other revenue streams, such as reallocating computing power for artificial intelligence.
Read more: Bitcoin Mining Stocks Plunge as Revenue Craters Amid Market Carnage
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XRP Resembles a Compressed Spring Poised for a Significant Price Move as Key Volatility Indicator Mirrors 2024 Patterns

The price action for XRP and bitcoin (BTC) resembles a tightly compressed spring on the verge of uncoiling with a sudden release of energy.
That’s the message from a key volatility indicator called Bollinger Bandwidth. Bollinger Bands are volatility bands set at plus two and minus two standard deviations above and below the 20-period moving average (SMA) of an asset’s market price. The bandwidth measures the space between these bands as a percentage of the 20-day moving average.
In the case of XRP, the Bollinger bandwidth has narrowed to its lowest level since October 2024 on the 4-hour chart, where each candle represents price action for a four-hour period. The 4-hour chart interval is quite popular in the 24/7 crypto market, allowing traders to analyze and predict short-term price movements. Bitcoin’s 4-hour chart mirrors the Bollinger bandwidth pattern in XRP.
The long-held belief is that tighter Bollinger bandwidth, reflecting a quiet period in the market, is akin to a compressed spring ready for significant movement.
During these calm phases, the market accumulates energy that is eventually released once a clear direction is established, often leading to dramatic rallies or sharp price declines/ Both XRP and bitcoin surged in November-December following an extended range-bound period that left their bandwidth at levels comparable to those observed today.
That said, tighter bands do not always indicate a bullish volatility explosion; they can also foreshadow a sell-off. For example, the bands tightened in October 2022, signaling a significant move ahead, which materialized on the downside after FTX went bust.
It remains to be seen whether this latest spring compression will trigger bullish volatility or lead both tokens into a tailspin. The recent hawkish comments from Federal Reserve’s Chairman Jerome Powell and selling by some whales favor the latter.
Stay alert!
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Trump’s Official Memecoin Surges Despite Massive $320 Million Unlock in Thin Holiday Trading

TRUMP, the memecoin tied to U.S. President Donald Trump, gained more than 9% in the past 24 hours following a $320 million token unlock. The price now sits around $8.40, still down more than 88% from its peak above $71 on Jan. 18.
The recent unlock may spell further trouble for investors, who are estimated to have lost a total of $2 billion after purchasing the token earlier this year.
Token unlocks typically flood the market with new supply and tend to depress prices. But in this case, the market appears to have priced in the release beforehand, potentially explaining the price uptick. Still, the $320 million unlock raises the risk of a large sell-off, especially given TRUMP’s thin liquidity.
Data from CoinMarketCap shows that just $1.3 million could move the token’s price by 2% on major exchanges. The move also comes during the Easter holiday weekend, when trading volumes are subdued and price swings can be more pronounced.
On social media, rumors are swirling about a possible event for large token holders, supposedly being organized by Trump himself. These claims remain unverified and highly speculative.
Data from Dune analytics shows there are currently 636,000 TRUMP token holders on-chain, with just 12,285 wallets having more than $1,000 worth of the cryptocurrency.
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