Embezzling Bitcoins is the perfect crime. As has been mentioned already, Karpeles has a history of computer fraud, so embezzling digital money would be right up his alley. He had the means, motive and opportunity to do so. When you consider the rampant embezzlement in a historical context ... it's pretty much case closed. Your argument boils down to "this time it's different". Also, laughing stock digital billionaire? Sorry but there's no such thing as a laughing stock billionaire. I'd take a billion knowing it would make me the "laughing stock" of the world, and so would anyone with a brain.

If the community hadn't called Karpeles out on using transaction malleability as a fictional excuse for losing 850,000 BTC, and we had all believed Karpeles, he would in all likelihood be looking at Japanese bankruptcy court followed by a lifetime of traveling the world with a hidden fortune rivaling Satoshi's.

> I'd take a billion knowing it would make me the "laughing stock" of the world, and so would anyone with a brain.

Not if I had $10m. Marginal utility of those last $990m is easily less than the hit to my reputation and the cost of constantly fearing for my freedom and physical safety. Especially when I can't buy anything large and obvious with them.

A court requested Karpeles appear in Texas to face possible charges for criminal wrongdoing, but again, this was only after he had been called out by the wider Bitcoin community for fabricating excuses. FYI: Karpeles turned down the offer.

Fact is embezzling Bitcoin has unquestionably _been_ the perfect crime for everyone who has attempted it. Karpeles made copious amounts of errors on his way to embezzling coins, and there's still people out there like yourself that would allow him to get away with it. Imagine if he had been anonymous. Imagine if he hadn't used the transaction malleability excuse. Imagine if the MtGox private database hadn't been leaked. Imagine if there were no investigative reporters in the wider Bitcoin community! Again, if that were the case, which thankfully it has not been the case, Karpeles would be looking at simple Japanese bankruptcy proceedings followed by a lifetime of world travel with a hidden fortune rivaling Satoshi's.

Is this part of the interview a lie then? I'm seriously asking, I don't know and you seem to have some information as to this aspect. It seems like a silly thing to lie about in an interview though.

there's still people out there like yourself that would allow him to get away with it

I'm not sure what you are talking about, but you seem to be projecting some argument on to me that I haven't made. I was simply calling out a bit of hyperbole.

Imagine if the MtGox private database hadn't been leaked. Imagine if there were no investigative reporters in the wider Bitcoin community! Again, if that were the case, which thankfully it has not been the case...

Exactly, there's quite a bit of scrutiny and investigation at this point. Hardly what I would call the perfect crime.

Also, aren't these bitcoins traceable to wherever they are eventually used? Is it really that good of a crime when a) you'll forever face public scrutiny (to varying degrees) by people with a vested interest in recovering the money, b) may have an investigation as to your conduct, and c) your stolen money is forever traceable?

I only meant to imply that many have read this WSJ interview without any historical context.

At this point, there may be scrutiny, but just a few months ago, people all over the place were claiming the US government must've seized MtGox's funds. If you look at @magicaltux's twitter feed, he even tried to fan flames on that government conspiracy theory in the same tweet where he began fabricating the excuse of being "physically attacked".

To anyone who hasn't been following the MtGox fiasco since mid-2013, which is when MtGox first started having "liquidity issues", it may very well seem like Karpeles has been charged with fraud. No, that isn't the case. Karpeles has been screaming "Transaction malleability" (BS), "US government stole it" (BS), and now "Physical attacker stole it". The Bitcoin community actually went along with each of Karpeles excuses, but public opinion has just recently began to spell out FRAUD, loudly and repeatedly. There is still no criminal investigation of Karpeles for fraud, just a lot of loud people screaming it on the Internet, because it is obvious and because it has happened so many times before in the Bitcoin space.

The truth is, Bitcoins aren't traceable if you know what you're doing over Tor. Anonymous spending is very much possible. Running a Bitcoin exchange with a proprietary database and large shared wallet with thousands upon thousands of BTC in it, is actually the perfect vehicle for coin mixing and I would be shocked if Karpeles didn't mix in personal BTC withdrawals over his years of running MtGox. It's really simple, transfer BTC into an exchange account with fake or no identifiable info attached to the account, wait a bit, and withdraw fresh coins. With judicious use of Tor, you have fresh new coins, and the original coins are tumbled around a gigantic shared wallet. There's just no practical way of linking BTC addresses to your identity if you know what you're doing.

I haven't been following the bitcoin community reaction, but from what I remember reading here, most people seemed VERY critical of his explanations of what happened.

The truth is, Bitcoins aren't traceable if you know what you're doing over Tor

Do you mind explaining this a bit? My understanding is that there's a trail of all transactions (transfers, I guess) of a bitcoin, so there's some tracking of the history of the funds. If it's a matter of mixing small amounts into larger shared wallets, it seems like what's needed (if it doesn't already exist) is a curated list of known bad bitcoins. If there was a public service to check whether the source bitcoin is blacklisted (or what percentage it's blacklisted, if mixed into a larger wallet), then sites accepting bitcoin trasnfers could make decisions on whether to accept it or not. This obviously would only work if a) people were willing to accept this list as bad, b) doing the legwork of tracking the history of a coin back isn't too computationally expensive, c) it was adopted soon, before the coins got too mixed in and how "bad" they are is diluted. It's then in your best interest to reject bad coins because it taints your wallet.

But maybe I've got a few assumptions in there that are completely bunk. I'm mostly an outsider to this.

In any case, the fact that bitcoin has a trail built in seems like it offers numerous ways to reduce the attractiveness of stealing them by making them harder to convert into goods and currency.