Mt. Gox CEO Returns to Twitter, Infuriates Burned Investors

Six months ago, Mark Karpeles was telling the world that his company, Mt. Gox, once the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, had somehow lost $400 million in customer funds. Now, he’s tweeting about beautiful Tokyo sunsets. After a long absence, the Mt Gox CEO has returned to Twitter with a bizarre string of tone-deaf tweets that […]
Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles at a news conference in February 2014 in Tokyo Japan.
Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles at a news conference in February, 2014 in Tokyo, Japan.The Asahi Shimbun via Getty

Six months ago, Mark Karpeles was telling the world that his company, Mt. Gox, once the world's largest bitcoin exchange, had somehow lost $400 million in customer funds. Now, he's tweeting about beautiful Tokyo sunsets.

After a long absence, the Mt Gox CEO has returned to Twitter with a bizarre string of tone-deaf tweets that were either written by a Turing test chat bot, or by a man completely oblivious to the economic chaos he has wrought. His first message after losing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoins? "What would we do without busybox?"—a reference to a slimmed-down Linux operating system used on devices such as routers. He's also Tweeted about a noodle dish called yakisoba and Japanese transportation systems.

Though he and Mt. Gox have said virtually nothing of substance about the exchange's problems, Karpeles seems to think the internet will happily retweet his thoughts on the weather, and that speaks to the strangely disassociated character of the man who build the world's most successful bitcoin exchange, and then lost it all.

"He continues to be oblivious about his own failure and the pain he has caused others," says Andreas Antonopoulos, the CSO with bitcoin wallet-maker Blockchain who helped Karpeles with some technical issues as Mt. Gox was collapsing. "He is confirming that he is a self-absorbed narcissist with an inflated sense of self-confidence who has no remorse."

Since Sunday, he's been on a roll, producing more Twitter messages than he had in the previous eight months. And each Tweet unleashes a new wave of sarcasm and invective from burned investors and observers. "Karpeles, yer an ass, just shut up till you pay back ...," wrote a user named ‏@HuasoCoin, shortly after Karpeles' first tweet.

@MagicalTux man you should starve in prison, where is our money?

— The Arbitrageur (@FiatMoneyEnd) June 19, 2014

To be fair, Karpeles has answered some investors, telling them that there's an inquiry going on and to check with the company's website for updates. But his behavior is still mind-boggling. Mt. Gox is reported to be the subject of criminal investigations in the U.S. and Japan and is also facing civil suits. The company lost an estimated 650,000 bitcoins – worth about $400 million at today's prices. Karpeles hasn't responded to WIRED's request for comments in more than a year. He couldn't be reached for this story.