Former CEO of Mt. Gox compares himself to SBF of crypto-exchange FTX

Former CEO of Mt. Gox, Mark Karpeles, described his trial experience after he was arrested in 2015, comparing it to the current one of Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the former CEO of FTX crypto-exchange. 

Mt. Gox’s Karpeles and his trial experience compared to SBF from the failed FTX crypto-exchange

In a tweet, the former CEO of Mt. Gox, Mark Karpeles, describes his trial experience amid the latest news regarding Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) from the crypto-exchange FTX which collapsed in November 2022. 

Karpeles had been arrested in 2015 on charges of embezzlement and breach of trust. In this regard, the former Mt. Gox CEO emphasized the following:

 “When I was arrested back in 2015, the most computing power I got was a simple calculator (+-*/√). Had 20,000 pages of evidence including over 5,000 pages of accounting. [The] calculation I did at the time helped me to earn release under bail and eventually be cleared of all embezzlement [and] breach of trust charges.”

This introduction about how Karpeles was able to exonerate himself comes because Sam Bankman-Fried was just denied temporary release from jail, which was required so he could prepare for trial by accessing the Internet from his laptop. 

And indeed, prior to this judge’s decision on FTX’s case, SBF’s lawyers had argued that there would not be adequate Internet access in prison to prepare for his trial next month. According to the US government, though, the defendant would have sufficient access to a laptop computer and the Internet.

For this reason, Karpeles wanted to describe how, despite the fact that he too was not afforded luxuries during his time in Japan, the former CEO of Mt Gox was able to exonerate himself. 

Former CEO of Mt Gox and the $120 calculator for his release from prison 

Karpeles then went on to detail how he managed to get himself released from prison:

“I spent a total of 11 months and 15 days in pre-trial detention, and didn’t have access to any of the evidence until about 7 to 8 months in. 

The jail’s store had some label stickers and folders I used to create an index of all the evidence I was sent by my lawyer, and I created a quick 8 pages index listing all the documents found in there by an ID I created at the time including the number of pages, who made the document, and which folder it was in.”

The former CEO of Mt. Gox later identified among the allegations the one that most depicted the basic argument for embezzlement. Basically, the company allegedly earned only $12 million, while expenses were $15 million, so the difference had to come from customer accounts. 

Having identified the charge, Karpeles explained how he found his solution:

“I spent about $120 to buy the best calculator they had, which could do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, square roots for some reason, and had buttons to add/remove excise tax. 

I spent the next two months going through the accounting information provided by the prosecution, found some missing profits that had not been properly accounted for, examined the company’s bank account records, which, fortunately, were also part of the trial documents, and was able to find about $5.5 million in unaccounted-for revenue. 

Suddenly, the argument raised by the prosecution didn’t make sense. The company made more than what was spent, and using this as a base my lawyer pushed the prosecution to straighten up their act.“

FTX holds $3.4 billion in crypto: $1.16 billion is in SOL

As of 31 August 2023, the bankrupt crypto-exchange FTX apparently holds the equivalent of as much as $3.4 billion in crypto, of which $1.16 billion is in Solana (SOL). 

Not only that, recently, another FTX financial document shows income and spending made in cash on behalf of the former CEO, that SBF indeed received over $1 billion in 2021. 

Speaking of spending, it appears that with FTX’s funds there is also a $2.5 million yacht for Samuel Trabucco, the former co-CEO of Alameda Research. Other lavish purchases have since been linked to multimillion-dollar real estate holdings in the names of other insiders, or political groups.