You may recall that in July of last year, bitcoin evangelist Roger Ver made it out to Tokyo and published a video on Mt. Gox during a rather difficult time for the company.
In that video, he made mention of a conversation with Gox CEO Mark Karpeles, and ultimately noted that he felt the issues then were caused by the traditional banking system.
Fast forward to early 2014 and Mt. Gox has again been having issues (as you’re likely well aware), recently halting withdrawals. On a number of social networking sites, the company has even been accused of being insolvent.
Given all that is on our plates here, we thought it would be interesting to catch up with Roger Ver and get his take on the current situation.
“I actually don’t have very strong opinions about this,” he said to newsBTC late this week.
Specifically, we had asked what Ver made of the community backlash and the calls for Mark Karpeles to step down from the Bitcoin Foundation board.
Said Ver:
My general opinions are that:
1. Mark needs to focus on [Mt. Gox], not the foundation.
2. I hope everyone gets their money back.
3. I hope regulators don’t use this as an opportunity to try to exert more control.
Interestingly, Roger’s third point is a very good one, and one we haven’t heard much talk about. Should the worst happen at Mt. Gox, what could this mean for the community in terms of regulation? Food for thought.
We just thought we’d share this with you.