Tokyo Court Affirms Ancient Bitcoin Wisdom: Coins Gifted to Scammers are No Longer Yours

This week a Tokyo Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Kyoto resident who lost 458 Bitcoins in the Mt Gox scam. The Kyoto resident represented himself in court on a complaint he brought against Mt Gox's receiver as Mt Gox is in bankruptcy. The court in dismissing the suit determined Bitcoin is not subject to ownership claims due to its intangible nature and the third parties involved in the sort of claim the Kyoto resident wished to make. The alarm on Mt Gox's inevitable collapse had been sounded well in advance of popular recognition of Mt Gox's failure.

MtGox Trustee has 200k Bitcoins, Creditors to Line Up as Bankruptcy Progresses

As of the third creditors meeting on April 22, 2015, the approximately 100,000 creditors from 130 countries who were swindled by Robert Marie Mark Karpeles and his Bitcoin-fiat exchange MtGox Co., Ltd. – despite the numerous and several warnings and warning signs,1 – can now file claims through bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayash of law firm Nagashima Ohno & Tsudematsu. Continue reading


  1. Not the least of which was the consistent $10+ spread between Mt Gox and Bitstamp that persisted throughout 2013, with the premium going to Gox of course, indicating that the Japanese firm was delaying withdrawals, most probably on account of a fractional reserve deposit scheme 

Japanese Newspaper Reports 99% Of Bitcoins At Mt.Gox Lost Due To Fraud

Yomiuri Shimbun, one of five national Japanese newspapers, is reporting via its English 'The Japan News' website that of the 650,000 bitcoins that went missing in the aftermath of the Mt. Gox collapse, 99% of the coins have been lost due to the fraudulent activities by an unknown individual or party. An additional 7,000 bitcoins are reported to have been stolen due to cyber-attacks. Continue reading

MtGox Bankruptcy Trustee Answers Some Questions

MtGox and Bankruptcy Trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi have answered some questions put to them by creditors at the second creditors meeting held on November 26th 2014.

In short:

  • Proof of claims will be accepted beginning April 2015.
  • Payments to TIBANNE have been reduced where possible.
  • Financial reports for MtGox's first and second fiscal year have been released but it's not known if they are accurate.
  • Bitcoin addresses will continue to be withheld.

Below is the English text from the predominately Japanese document.

Continue reading

Kraken Considers Purchasing MtGox Assets As It Pushes Into Japan

Payward1 run exchange Kraken is headed to Japan with plans to begin offering its service by the end of this October. Founder and CEO Jesse Powell believes Kraken has the expertise required to meet demand for a Japanese Bitcoin exchange. Kraken won't be the first exchange to launch in Japan since the collapse of MtGox with BitOcean and BtcBox having beaten them to the punch earlier this year. Continue reading


  1. Investors include Hummingbird Ventures, Trace Mayer and the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund.