Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles is set to launch a new cryptocurrency exchange, EllipX, later this month with a focus on “transparency and user-friendliness”.
Based in Poland, EllipX is expected to launch in Europe and Karpeles told The Block that it will comply with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). Karpeles, who will serve as the chief technology officer, added that the platform would prioritize transparency, particularly for newcomers to the crypto space.
“If you look at the top 100 exchanges, beyond the first few like Binance and Coinbase, it’s often unclear who runs these platforms,” Karpeles said. EllipX will adopt a structure similar to the New York Stock Exchange, separating different operational entities like trading, brokering, and storage to ensure transparency.
Karpeles plans to introduce a system where one entity handles market trading, while brokers in different countries provide localized services, and crypto transactions are processed through independent clearinghouses such as BitGo.
Karpeles intends to share technical data with customers and conduct third-party audits to assure full transparency.
The launch of EllipX is part of Karpeles’ effort to regain credibility in the crypto market. He is also preparing to launch Ungox, a non-profit organization that will provide ratings for crypto projects and exchanges.
As part of his return, Karpeles has promised discounts on trading fees for Mt. Gox NFT holders, while all former Mt. Gox customers from 2010 to 2014 are eligible to receive these NFTs for free.
The news comes nearly three years after Mark Karpeles lost an appeal against his conviction for manipulating electronic data after a Japanese high court upheld the ruling.
Karpeles, a French citizen, was previously cleared of embezzlement and breach of trust charges by a different Japanese court but was found guilty of manipulating data. The court imposed a suspended sentence, allowing him to avoid jail time unless he commits another offense within four years.
Japanese prosecutors originally sought a 10-year prison term, arguing that Karpeles mixed his personal finances with Mt. Gox’s assets to hide the exchange’s losses from hackers. However, the court handed him a two-and-a-half-year sentence, suspended under the condition that he remains offense-free.
Karpeles claimed he was trying to protect the exchange’s users, but the Tokyo court ruled that his data manipulation betrayed client trust and constituted an abuse of his engineering skills.
Mt. Gox, once the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, collapsed in 2014 after losing 850,000 bitcoins in a hacking attack, marking one of the biggest setbacks in Bitcoin history. The exchange later claimed it had lost track of around 750,000 bitcoins belonging to customers and 100,000 of its own but subsequently found 200,000 bitcoins.
