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Last week, large bitcoin transactions from the defunct exchange Mt. Gox suddenly surfaced again.
A staggering 10,600 bitcoin was moved by the bankrupt exchange, worth nearly a billion dollars. A small portion, about 185 BTC, was sent to the crypto exchange Kraken. The rest was moved to a new storage address.
As a result, many investors fear new selling pressure, and the old Mt. Gox wound is reopened once more.
The Fall of Mt. Gox: The World’s Largest Bitcoin Exchange #
To understand why this is so sensitive, we have to go back to the early days of bitcoin.
Mt. Gox originally started as a trading platform for the card game Magic: The Gathering. The exchange’s name stands for Magic: The Gathering Online eXchange (Mt. Gox).
In 2013, the platform grew to become by far the largest bitcoin exchange in the world. At its peak from Tokyo, the platform processed more than 70 percent of all bitcoin transactions globally.
Behind the scenes, however, things were going wrong. Security was so flawed and administration so chaotic that for years it went unnoticed that massive amounts of bitcoin were being stolen from the platform.
Between 2011 and 2014, a total of about 650,000 to 850,000 BTC were stolen by hackers. In February 2014, Mt. Gox pulled the plug and filed for bankruptcy. The market reacted in a panic: the bitcoin price crashed, and confidence in the crypto market took a huge hit.
Years later, about 200,000 bitcoin were recovered. This began a lengthy legal process in which tens of thousands of victims are still waiting for their bitcoin.
Why Mt. Gox’s Bitcoin Still Matters #
Today, more than ten years later, Mt. Gox still holds roughly 35,000 BTC. At the current price, that is about $3 billion (€2.6 billion).
Those coins belong to some 20,000 to 22,000 creditors, but the repayments are being done in phases, and the deadline has been pushed to the end of October 2026.
So why is the market so concerned? Investors fear that victims will sell their returned bitcoins immediately, as they are now worth much more. This is why tension rises every time a large bitcoin transaction from Mt. Gox appears.
For now, the transactions seem to be primarily internal and not actual payouts. Furthermore, the potential blow to the market is getting smaller, as a portion of the bitcoin has already been paid out. Nevertheless, the market reacts nervously each time new Mt. Gox transactions surface.