Bitcoin’s Biggest Heist :The History of the Mt Gox Hack

At the beginning of 2014, Mt Gox, a bitcoin exchange based in Japan, was the largest bitcoin exchange in the world, handling over 70% of all bitcoin transactions worldwide. By the end of February of that year, it was bankrupt.

Anyone who was using Mt. Gox lost access to their assets, and it has been a cautionary tale for crypto investors. While the assets weren’t all lost, anything that was left has been frozen for years.

Now, it looks like things might be turning a corner, but there are still many unknowns. Before we talk about how there could be a resolution on the horizon, let’s look at how we got here in the first place.

The victim of a massive hack, Mt. Gox lost about 740,000 bitcoins (6% of all bitcoin in existence at the time), valued at the equivalent of €460 million at the time and over $3 billion at October 2017 prices. An additional $27 million was missing from the company’s bank accounts.  Although 200,000 bitcoins were eventually recovered, the remaining 650,000 have never been recovered.

This post will discuss the rise and fall of Mt. Gox, the aftermath of the hack and the resulting (and ongoing) investigation and will consider whether it could happen again.

For a long time it looked like the creditors of Mt. Gox could be left empty handed, but there have been some new developments that may mean a return of capital to crypto-traders who were left holding the bag when Mt. Gox went bust.

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