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Brock Pierce: My Mt. Gox Redemption Plan ‘Shows Power Of Bitcoin’

Esther Kim | Feb 17, 2019 | 06:00

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Venture capitalist and ex-Bitcoin Foundation director Brock Pierce thinks his plan to take over the Mt. Gox rehabilitation process “demonstrates the power of open source.”

Avoiding Crypto ‘Lehman Brothers’

Speaking on the latest edition of the Keiser Report February 16, Pierce, who has gained mixed reactions to his ‘Gox Rising’ scheme, said community action was key to ensuring the defunct exchange did not become a cryptocurrency “Lehman Brothers.”

“Do we want it to end like Lehman Brothers, like the old financial system?” he reasoned.

Or would we like this story to end differently? Would we like this story to end in a way that demonstrates the power of the open source community and blockchain and Bitcoin[?]

‘Visceral Hatred’

Pierce’s company attempted to acquire Mt.Gox from former CEO Mark Karpeles several times while it was still functional. After its implosion in early 2014, Pierce tried again, but no deal emerged.

Five years later, amid new controversy circling around a $16 billion claim by Coinlab, which could jeopardize creditors’ chances of receiving lost funds, frustration is showing.

“I just want to make sure that creditors get all [the surplus funds] and Mark Karpeles gets zero,” Pierce continued.

The only reason Mark Karpeles should care about who owns [Mt. Gox] is because he cares who potentially is the beneficiary of that potential surplus.

Pierce did not dispute Keiser when the latter summarized he had a “visceral hatred” of Karpeles.

As Bitcoinist reported, the lengthy civil rehabilitation process for Mt. Gox’s creditors has sparked various criticisms in the past.

During the time when trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi was liquidating funds to pay them, the Bitcoin price underwent several dramatic downturns. It later emerged that Kobayashi was likely selling huge amounts of Bitcoin on public exchange BitPoint.

Karpeles continues to deny any wrongdoing as his court case winds down, with prosecutors in December nonetheless calling for a ten-year prison sentence. He remains CTO of Mt. Gox, under Kim Nilsson, who lambasted Pierce’s plans in a dedicated blog post earlier this month.

What do you think about Brock Pierce’s perspective on Mt. Gox? Let us know in the comments below!

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