4:1 Among the first and greatest of exchanges, There was one called Mt. Gox. At its height, it handled Over 70% of all Bitcoin transactions on Earth. And the people entrusted it with their coins.
4:2 Their faith was strong. They believed 2FA was unbreakable. Some even claimed Satoshi’s will passed through its gates. And thus Mt. Gox was called: “The Digital Jerusalem.”
“They traded without keys, Trusted without trust, And placed all security in a single server.”
Trial of Gox 4:2
4:3 But within, the rot festered. Security was frail. The keeper could not tell transaction from treasury. And the system ran on… a single Excel file.
4:4 Then came the great calamity: February 2014. 850,000 ₿TC vanished. The website froze. Logins failed. Wallets stopped responding.
4:5 The world trembled. The media roared. And headlines declared:
“Bitcoin is dead.” Governments launched inquiries. Investors protested. And the community fell into mourning.
4:6 Their wrath turned to CEO Mark Karpelès. He spoke with a vacant face. But none received their coins back from his hands.
4:7 The courts opened. The trial dragged on. The lost ₿TC was not recovered. Only a fraction was returned Years later, through Civil Rehabilitation.
“That day, the illusion of centralization collapsed. The exchange god was revealed to be false.”
Trial of Gox 4:7
4:8 After Mt. Gox, The people began to proclaim:
“Not your keys, not your coins.”
They pulled out cold wallets, Etched their seeds onto paper, Ran full nodes, And became their own banks.
4:9 Mt. Gox fell, But ₿itcoin did not stop. Blocks continued every ten minutes. And Satoshi’s design remained untouched.
Fact check: what really happened
The scripture above is satire. Here is the grown-up version, with a receipt for each date. We checked the claims against the trustee's own site and press reports on October 17, 2026.
What checks out
The collapse was in February 2014. The exchange shut down that month. Coverage at the time first said 850,000 bitcoin were stolen. The exchange later found about 200,000 bitcoin in an old wallet, leaving a working figure of about 650,000 (BankInfoSecurity, 2019).
Karpelès was convicted of one charge, falsifying data, and cleared of embezzlement and fraud. On March 15, 2019 a Tokyo court gave him two and a half years in prison, suspended. He has said he was not responsible for the theft (same source).
The money did not come back quickly. The Tokyo District Court opened civil rehabilitation proceedings on June 22, 2018. The rehabilitation plan was confirmed on October 20, 2021 and became final and binding on November 16, 2021. A notice dated June 24, 2024 announced that repayments in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash were starting (trustee site).
What needs a footnote
"Over 70% of all Bitcoin transactions." This is a commonly repeated figure. We did not verify it from a primary source, so treat it as folklore.
"A single Excel file." We found no source for it. Treat it as a joke.
"Only a fraction was returned." Fair, and still being decided. By the trustee's notices, repayments began in 2024 and a March 2025 announcement said about 19,500 creditors had been repaid (The Block). Some creditors have not finished the paperwork.
The part that is funnier than the satire
The repayment deadline keeps moving. The trustee's site lists extensions on September 21, 2023, October 10, 2024, October 27, 2025, and October 16, 2026, which pushed the deadline from October 31, 2026 to October 31, 2027. The exchange collapsed in 2014. Its creditors are now waiting for a deadline set thirteen years later.