began—that Mark posted any
kind of explanation to the
Bitcoin forums. At that point,
he gave the basics of what he
knew and said that the site
would be down indefinitely.
He
also
announced
his
intention to cancel all the
trades made with the Bitcoins
created by the hacker, a move
that drew an immediate
backlash from buyers, who
believed that they had gotten
thousands of those Bitcoins
on the cheap. Although many
expressed anger that Mark
was violating one of the
fundamental tenets of Bitcoin
—the
irreversibility
of
Bitcoin
transactions—Mark
could do so because trades on
Mt. Gox happened only
within the company’s system,
not on the actual blockchain
(Mt. Gox interacted with the
blockchain only when coins
moved into and out of the
company).
The
scope
of
the
questions
soon
expanded,
especially after it emerged
that the hacker had stolen a
copy of Mt. Gox’s customer
database, with everyone’s e-
mail addresses, and posted it
on the Internet. There was
bewilderment that Mt. Gox
administrators had needed
only a single password to log
in, not the multiple passwords
that most financial websites
required. And Mark’s system
had not checked on the IP
address and location of users
to look for abnormal activity.
“Frankly, we are fortunate
that our hackers have been
stupid and lazy so far,” Jeff
Garzik, the North Carolina
programmer, said to some
other developers.
On
top
of
these
programming mistakes, the
released customer database
demonstrated
how
few
measures Mark had taken to
stay
compliant
with
international rules designed to
stop money laundering. Mark
had just e-mail addresses for
most of his users, much less
than
financial
regulators
generally
expected.
Of
course, it wasn’t clear what
regulations Bitcoin would fall
under, if any. But there was
now real money flowing into
and out of Mt. Gox, making
the exchange an easy target
for government prosecutors if
they decided to look.
THE FIRST SIGN of any relief
for Mark came in an e-mail
that popped into his inbox
later that morning.
Hey Mark—
If you guys need
any physical help, I’m
available. I can be at
your office within 10
minutes.
I’m not sure what
I can do to help, but I
can help with phones
or emails or anything
you need for a day or
two until you get
things calmed down.
The e-mail came from
Roger Ver. From Roger’s
glass-walled
sixteenth-floor
apartment, in one of Tokyo’s
most exclusive residential
towers, he could see the
Cerulean Tower, where Mark
had recently set up Mt. Gox’s
offices. Since discovering
Bitcoin in April on Free Talk
Live, Roger had dedicated
many of his waking hours to
thinking up new ways to
promote the technology. In a
conversation right before the
crash he had said something
that would become a standard
line for him: “Bitcoins are the
most
important
invention
since the internet itself. They
will change the way the entire
world does business.”
At this point, though,
Roger knew that Bitcoin
relied as much on Mt. Gox’s
survival as on the Bitcoin
protocol itself, and he wanted
to make sure that Mt. Gox
would survive so that Bitcoin
could as well.
By the time Roger sent
his e-mail, Mark had driven
in his souped-up 2009 Honda
Civic from his apartment to
his new office. Mark quickly
connected with Roger on
Internet
chat—Mark’s
preferred
method
of
communication—and asked
him to come right over. He
needed people who could
speak
English
and
sort
through the thousands of
incoming
e-mails
from
confused customers.
When Roger showed up
at the bare-walled office, he
was an even more forceful
and impressive presence than
he seemed online. He had the
lean, muscular physique of a
wrestler, which is what he
had once been, and the buzz
cut and big smile of a
politician, which is what he
had once wanted to be.
What’s more, he came with
his Japanese fiancée, Ayaka,
and one of his employees
from Memory Dealers, whom
he put at Mark’s service.
Roger, on the other hand,
had to adjust his judgments of
Mark in the other direction.
Mark had the chubby look of
a big child and the nervous
crooked smile of someone
who
was
not
entirely
comfortable
with
direct
human contact. His wardrobe
was heavily reliant on T-
shirts
with
puns
about
programming languages. His
heavily
accented
English
made
him
difficult
to
understand. Mark’s only staff
member
was
a
young
Canadian
with
no
programming expertise who
had been hired a few weeks
earlier. Roger put all this
aside for the time being and
dived into the flood of
customer-support requests.
Roger brought an energy
unlike anything that Mark
had seen before. As he
plowed through complaints
and requests, Roger also
managed to convince an old
friend to get on a flight from
California to help the Mt.
Gox rescue effort.
Roger and the friend who
came to Tokyo the next day,
Jesse
Powell,
were
a
somewhat unlikely pair. In
contrast to Roger’s clean-cut,
buttoned-down
appearance,
Jesse had long blond hair and
had used money from his
startup to found an art gallery
in
his
hometown,
Sacramento. But Jesse and
Roger had met when they
were teenagers and both
playing the card game Magic
competitively. The strategy
game appealed to both young
men—and many of the other
youngsters who later found
Bitcoin—because they liked
the
idea
of
finding
unexpected
solutions
to
complex problems. Later on,
the same instinct had led both
of them to the martial art
jujitsu. A mixture of Japanese
and
Brazilian
influences,
jujitsu gained renown as a
way
for
smaller,
less
muscular people to disarm
and defeat larger opponents.
Libertarianism and Bitcoin
were alluring to Roger and
Jesse for much the same