A Guy Flew 12 Hours Around The World To MtGox To Demand His Bitcoin Back

Bitcoin withdrawals at MtGox, once the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, still have not resumed since the Tokyo-based firm announced its software had failed to account for an unusual, exploitable feature of Bitcoin's key protocol.

As it turned out, the rest of the Bitcoin ecosystem got hacked 24 hours later via the same glitch.

But we explained in depth why MtGox has drawn the singular ire of the Bitcoin community: it is unusually unresponsive to customers, and its relationships with its banking clients remains murky.

One Bitcoiner has now attempted to take matters into his own hands. Kolin Burges, a London-based programmer, flew 12 hours to Tokyo to camp outside MtGox's Tokyo headquarters to confront CEO Mark Karpeles about when he would be able to get his money back.

It was a stunt, to be sure.

But it shows the degree of frustration MtGox users feel about the exchange.

Eventually Karpeles does show up. Their confrontation, filmed by Coindesk's Jon Southurst, proves a bit unintelligible. But asked if he can get his money back, Karpeles replies "We can't right now." Asked if MtGox still has his money in the first place, Karpeles does not respond.

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