After the bankruptcy of Mt. Gox, the world's largest crypto assets exchange at the time, its former founder is now living in seclusion in Japan and has switched to working in VPN.

What is Mark Karpelès, the founder and CEO of the world's largest crypto assets exchange Mt. Gox back in the day, doing now? Karpelès is currently living a quiet life in Japan, shifting his work focus to VPN privacy protection technology and AI agent development. Karpelès is currently serving as the protocol head of vp.net and collaborating with Roger Ver, an early Bitcoin evangelist known as the Bitcoin Jesus, and Andrew Lee, the founder of Private Internet Access, to create a VPN service that allows users to verify themselves.

According to the latest reports, Kapeles is now in excellent condition, successfully managing his weight and looking vibrant, almost as if he has aged twenty years younger. He even revealed that during his imprisonment in Japan, his sleep was excellent, and prison life significantly improved his health. When he was the CEO of the Mt. Gox exchange, he was a workaholic, often sleeping only two hours each night and suffering from long-term sleep deprivation, while prison allowed him to restore a regular sleep schedule. After being released, his physique has undergone a dramatic transformation, now showing a better condition than when he was younger, which has amazed the Bitcoin community. ( Kids, don't try to break the law because of this.

Former cryptocurrency exchange founder turns to VPN and AI agents

Capelais's new company vp.net employs Intel SGX technology, allowing users to verify the actual code running on the server. Capelais describes this as a VPN model that does not require trust and can be independently verified. He is also quietly developing an AI agent system on the personal cloud computing platform shells.com, which has not yet been publicly disclosed. This system grants artificial intelligence control over a complete virtual machine, enabling it to install software, manage emails, and in the future, even integrate credit card transactions to complete shopping processes. Capelais stated that the goal is to give AI a complete computer, allowing it to operate freely; if successful, it would represent a comprehensive upgrade in AI agent capabilities.

Mt. Gox exchange was hit by a hacker attack and was once suspected to be the terrorist pirate Roberts.

The current situation of Capeles contrasts sharply with when he was at the center of the Bitcoin storm fifteen years ago. In 2010, Capeles ran a server company called Tibanne and began accepting Bitcoin payments when a French client living in Peru had trouble conducting international transactions, becoming one of the earliest companies to adopt Bitcoin. He often gathered with early bigwigs of the Bitcoin community, with Bitcoin Jesus Roger Ver being a regular visitor to his office. Capeles' servers also hosted the domain of the Silk Road dark web, and this connection later drew the attention of U.S. law enforcement, even leading to suspicions that he might be the online alter ego of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht: Dread Pirate Roberts (, the notorious pirate Roberts ). At that time, the suspect behind this account was involved in serious crimes such as hiring a hitman, money laundering with crypto assets, and online drug trafficking. Ulbricht firmly denied being the notorious pirate Roberts, while U.S. law enforcement listed Capeles as a suspect. Ultimately, who the “notorious pirate Roberts” is has become an unsolved mystery akin to Rashomon.

In 2011, Mark Karpeles acquired the Mt. Gox exchange from Jed McCaleb. During the handover, approximately 80,000 Bitcoins had already been stolen, which was not immediately disclosed to users. After taking over, Karpeles attempted to fix technical issues and establish compliance policies, blocking accounts related to illegal activities. Against the backdrop of the rapid popularity of Bitcoin, Mt. Gox once handled the vast majority of Bitcoin transactions globally, becoming the core gateway of the crypto assets world.

In 2014, Mt. Gox collapsed due to a massive hacking incident, with over 650,000 Bitcoins BTC stolen. Subsequent investigations pointed to connections with the BTC-e exchange and Alexander Vinnik. Although Vinnik pleaded guilty in the United States, he was sent back to Russia during a prisoner exchange, and the case evidence was subsequently sealed. Kapeles stated that true justice has not been served, and the stolen Bitcoins remain missing to this day.

The English teacher who became a cellmate while serving time in Japan.

In August 2015, Capeles was arrested in Japan and was imprisoned for about 11 and a half months. His cellmates included gang members, drug dealers, and fraudsters. He passed the time by teaching English, and after his cellmates saw news about him in the newspapers provided by the guards, they gave him the nickname 'Mr. Bitcoin'. Even a gang member tried to recruit him, secretly slipping him a phone number so he could contact them after his release. He stated to the media that he certainly would not make that call.

During his detention in Tokyo, he was also held in solitary confinement for more than six months, spending his days only through reading and writing. In the end, he successfully overturned the main charge of embezzlement thanks to a large number of accounting records, being convicted only of a lesser charge of forgery.

Kapeles has shown significant improvement in his physical condition after being released from prison. His long-term workaholic lifestyle was abruptly interrupted, and a regular routine has helped him regain his health. The outside world is particularly surprised by his physical transformation. As the Mt. Gox bankruptcy proceedings shift to civil rehabilitation, creditors can apply for compensation in Bitcoin. There were rumors that Kapeles might acquire a vast fortune due to remaining assets, but he has denied this multiple times, expressing a desire for creditors to recover as many assets as possible.

Capelas currently does not hold Bitcoin, criticizing Saylor and the ETF.

Surprisingly, Capeles stated that he personally does not hold Bitcoin, but his company accepts Bitcoin as a payment method. When discussing the current state of Bitcoin, he criticized the centralized risks of ETFs and people like Michael Saylor, and he also criticized FTX, stating that it is utterly crazy that they used QuickBooks to account for a billion-dollar company. Today's Capeles is once again collaborating with Roger Ver, but he maintains a cautious attitude towards the current state of Bitcoin, believing that while mathematics and technology are trustworthy, human nature is not reliable.

This article first appeared on Chain News ABMedia after the bankruptcy of Mt. Gox, the world's largest crypto assets exchange at the time, where its former founder is now living in Japan and has switched to working in VPN.