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History: Part 4 – Mt. Gox Hack
• Mt.Gox was a Japanese Bitcoin exchange that launched in 2010 by Jed McCaleb, and then later
bought by Mark Kepeles in 2011, who would lead Mt.Gox to becoming one of the largest bitcoin
exchanges in the world.
• By 2014, Mt.Gox was one the largest Bitcoin exchanges, accounting for approximately 70-80% of all
bitcoin transactions at the time. However, Mt.Gox as an organization had many issues between
2011 and 2014 such as hacks, lawsuits filed by potential partners, investigations by governmental
bodies, and an otherwise dysfunctional management.
• However, things took a turn for the worse when rumors arose in early 2014 that Mt.Gox’s website
had been hacked with 744,400 Bitcoins stolen from the exchange. On February 24, 2014, Mt.Gox
ceased operations, shut down its’ website, and no longer allowed customers to withdraw their
bitcoin, with a report coming out that same week confirming that 744,400 bitcoins had been stolen,
“as well as an additional 100,000 [B]itcoins” from the exchange itself.
• On February 28, 2014, Mt.Gox filed for bankruptcy in Japan and the United States.
• Currently, Mt.Gox is still going through bankruptcy proceedings with 200,000 Bitcoins Mt.Gox found
in an old wallet.dat file being held in trust for creditors.
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