Jed McCaleb on the Creation of Mt. Gox

Interview location: San Francisco
Interview date: Wednesday 30th Jan, 2019
Company: Stellar
Role: Cofounder

In February 2014 Mt. Gox suspended trading and filed for bankruptcy after approximately 850,000 Bitcoins were stolen, at the time, valued at more than $450m. At the time of its demise it was being run by Mark Karpelès who had acquired the site from Jed McCaleb in 2011.

In this interview I talk to Jed about the creation of Mt. Gox, the handover to Mark Karpelès and what responsibility he shares for its collapse.

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Timestamps:

00:00:06: Introduction to the Mt. Gox Series
00:04:42: Interview introduction
00:05:11: Jed’s background and beginnings in crypto
00:06:08: Why was Jed interested in Bitcoin?
00:06:40: Thoughts on the crypto space in 2019
00:08:56: Introduction to Stellar
00:10:46: Beginnings of Mt. Gox
00:12:59: Why Mt. Gox was so successful at the time
00:13:57: What goes into building an exchange and some of the challenges
00:16:38: Mt. Gox’s first days of trading and problems encountered
00:20:08: Security at Mt. Gox
00:22:11: The next chapter for Mt. Gox; handover to Mark
00:24:11: Jed’s problems with Mark
00:27:34: Interval
00:29:25: When Jed became aware of the Mt. Gox hack
00:31:46: Discussing the WizSec report and bitcoins lost at Mt. Gox
00:39:42: Jed’s current relationship with Mark
00:41:39: Summary about Jed’s current feelings about Mt. Gox
00:45:24: Exchange hacks in 2019
00:46:11: How to take crypto forward in 2019
00:49:01: About Stellar and how they are encouraging new usage
00:51:44: How to keep in touch with Jed

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Helpful Links:

Connect with Jed:
- On Twitter @JedMcCaleb
- On Wikipedia
- His website: http://jedmccaleb.com/
- On LinkedIn
- On CrunchBase
- On AngelList

Connect with Stellar:
- On their website: https://www.stellar.org/
- On Facebook
- On Twitter
- On LinkedIn
- On GitHub
- On Reddit
- On Keybase

Mentioned in the interview:
- Slashdot article about Bitcoin
- eDonkey2000
- Double spend problem
- Magic the Gathering
- Liberty Reserve
- Mt. Gox
- Mt. Gox Collapse
- WizSec - Breaking open the MtGox case, part

Other relevant WBD podcasts:
- WBD058: Trace Mayer on Why You Must Own Your Bitcoin Private Keys

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