The fiasco of Mt. Gox occurred roughly five years ago in February of 2014, but that doesn’t mean its memory doesn’t live on. There are still many people that allege to have lost money in the sudden and drastic crash that hit the doomed exchange, and their class-action lawsuit against the company’s former CEO Mark Karpeles has now been given the go-ahead by a federal judge in Philadelphia.
Justice Is Coming for Mark Karpeles
At one time, Mt. Gox was the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, managing primarily bitcoin accounts for several hundred customers. Things seemed calm and stable until the date mentioned, when roughly $400 million+ in bitcoin funds practically vanished overnight. The exchange was the victim of one of the largest cyberattacks in history, and many people ultimately lost their life savings in the blink of an eye.
Many alleged that CEO Mark Karpeles may have been behind the attack, or at least didn’t do enough to potentially prevent Mt. Gox from being victimized. The basis of this new lawsuit states that Karpeles likely knew about the online problems Mt. Gox was suffering from and did little to nothing to warn investors or make sure that the exchange’s vulnerabilities did not affect customers.
Mt. Gox was stationed in Tokyo, Japan, while Karpeles himself is a French citizen. This ultimately led to serious arguments that the United States did not have the power to enforce the lawsuit against him, as the country held no jurisdiction in the matter. Judge Robert Kelly, however, sees things very differently. He states that many of the customers involved with the exchange were stationed in the U.S. at the time of Mt. Gox’s fall, which is what gives the country a ruling in this case.
This Seems to Be a Running Theme
Cryptocurrency seems to be entering a “give everyone what’s coming to them” phase. Live Bitcoin News has already reported on two similar instances involving class-action suits against potential illicit activity towards cryptocurrency enthusiasts. The first involves cell phone and internet provider AT&T. The suit was initially brought forth by crypto entrepreneur and investor Michael Terpin, who alleges that AT&T did not do enough to protect him against a SIM-swapping attack that led to the loss of millions in crypto funds.
AT&T is presently denying it had anything to do with the incident, but a federal judge in Los Angeles does not see it that way, and he is permitting the lawsuit to move forward. Also, Alexander Vinnick – the co-owner of crypto exchange BTC-e – was recently arrested in Greece and is now facing a $100 million lawsuit being brought forth against him by U.S. authorities for allegedly stealing crypto funds from other exchanges. Legislators say Vinnick violated the Bank Secrecy Act and he’s also facing extradition back to Russia, his homeland.
