Showing posts with label mt gox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mt gox. Show all posts

Over $600 million in cash and nearly another $600 million in Bitcoin is about to be distributed to a group of cryptocurrency traders - their next move will effect us all...

The biggest move in the Mt.Gox saga since members had their money stolen in 2014 - some of it is finally about to be returned!

The victims, who formed a group known as 'Mt. Gox Legal' say they've agreed to terms of settlement.

At the same time, the trustee who holds all of Mt.Gox's assets says he's ready to pay them - and he's holding over $600 million in cash, and nearly another $600 million worth of Bitcoin.

We learned last month where that cash came from, when a site named "GoxDox" leaked documents they claimed to exposed internal discussions of selling off BTC on BitPoint, an exchange - even though it was promised this would be done offline so the markets wouldn't crash from a flood of tokens for sale.  It all happened right around the crash of late 2017, giving people a new person to blame for the bear market.

Now some official documents have been shared, which states:

 "Rehabilitation Trustee hasestablished the trust as the measure to secure the interests of bankruptcy creditors and entrusted the amount of JPY 15,894,588,396 (including an amount expected to be appropriated for various expenses of the trust) in the trust" reads the portion regarding cash holdings "The amount of BTC held by the Rehabilitation Debtor as of March 18, 2019 is 141,686.35371099 BTC. The Rehabilitation Trustee has been still investigating the existence of additional BTC held by the Rehabilitation Debtor. If any BTC is found, the Rehabilitation Trustee will move them to the address managed. Further, the amount of BCH held by the Rehabilitation Debtor as of March 18, 2019 is 142,846.35166254 BCH" reads the portion regarding crypto holdings. 

So here's how everyone is hoping this plays out: The BTC is distributed, and those receiving it just HODL that.   Then at the same time, over $600 million in cash will be distributed to them as well - and they'll decide re-invest in cryptocurrency.

The question is - how many of these people are still into crypto?  While you may think having your tokens stolen and not getting any of them back for 5 years would leave you pretty angry, you're right.

But let's also factor in that all of their stolen Bitcoin was originally purchased for under $1000 - actually, most of it was purchased for way less as there was only a 4 month period in late 2013 where Bitcoin even went above $300, Mt.Gox collapsed right after it shot up to around $1000 towards the end of the year.

Another perspective - the group receiving this $600 million in cash and nearly $600 million in Bitcoin is made up of about 1000 people.  While some are getting a lot more than others, there's enough to give 1000 people $1 million each.

Some of those who were left jaded on crypto at the time, are about to become crypto-millionares.  Personally, i'd be surprised if they still hold a grudge,

Speaking to one of the settlement group members, they explained it this way 'I'm expecting a good amount, and i'll absolutely be purchasing more Bitcoin, and Ethereum, and a couple others" he says "but I stayed into crypto the whole time and took it as a lesson to never leave funds sitting on an exchange.  There's some among the group who never touched crypto after this, and spent 2017 struggling financially when they should have been multi-millionaires.   I don't see them coming back". 

So will they keep the Bitcoin and buy more? Sending the markets shooting back up.

Or sell the Bitcoin and keep the cash?  Causing yet another Mt.Gox related dip?

Based on my own interactions in various cryptocurrency communities online, I think the majority of Mt.Gox victims are still in the game, and ready to buy more.   I can't imagine a situation worse than 50/50, meaning those selling are balanced out by those spending the cash portion of their settlement on more.

But that's just a guess, and we'll soon have the answer. No date for the payments to be distributed is set yet, but things have been moving fast lately - expect it to happen soon.
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Author: Adam Lee 
Asia News Desk

HACKED and LEAKED - the documents some say explain the early 2018 Bitcoin crash, and the 'smoking gun' that could prove it..

For those new to the cryptocurrency scene, you may be lucky enough to never have heard of Mt. Gox.

Mt.Gox was a bitcoin exchange that at one point up to 70% of Bitcoin trades were going through.

It began in 2010, and ended horribly in 2014 when they announced that approximately 850,000 bitcoins belonging to customers and the company were missing and likely stolen, an amount valued at more than $450 million at the time.

Mark Karpeles, although not the sites founder, bought the site in 2011 and took over as CEO.  While his level of personal fault has been debated, he was the man in charge when in June of the same year when in response to a security breach Mt. Gox moved bitcoins from "cold storage" and it was all downhill from there.

Then, beginning in Nov 2013 customers were experiencing delays of weeks to months in withdrawing cash from their accounts, and by Feb 2014, Mt. Gox halted all bitcoin withdrawals, and by the end of the month the fiasco was blamed for a 36% loss in Bitcoin's value.

Now, somebody's out for revenge! A website called "GoxDox" is releasing leaked/hacked documents they claim expose a 'behind the scenes' even worse than the disaster the public already knew.

Short version of the story - they were ordered to sell the remaining coins they had to pay back whatever user losses they could. They did, but insisted it was all done "OTC", a reference to over the counter trading where someone simply sells their Bitcoin to someone else directly.

When it's done this way the price isn't effected for the rest of the market, the price we all use comes from recent bids on exchanges, when nobody is bidding nothing can change.

But the leaked documents show internal discussions of selling off BTC on BitPoint, an exchange.

"How do we know it's BitPoint?  GoxDox is in possession of the trustee’s bank book, posted in full at the footer for your reading pleasure.  BitPoint in Japanese is ビットポイント . (seen on screen shots here) Unless BitPoint is being really generous, we’d wager the reason they are depositing billions JPY into the trustee’s bank account is because they were hired to sell the MtGox Estate's BTC/BCH." says the leaker.

They then share further documention that outline a series of 25 large sell orders, spread out over a 3 month period and totaling $312 million.



But the biggest factor we've spotted and the most simple way to confirm a connection - the starting balance of the account is the same as Mt.Gox's known remaining supply.

Legit or not? Decide for yourself - view the leaked documents here.

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Author: Oliver Redding
Seattle News Desk

Full Length Documentary: What happens when 850,000 Bitcoins go missing? The unbelievable true story...


In 2015 a man is escorted his home in Tokyo by authorities. Hours later, he's indicted and imprisoned for forgery of computer data and embezzlement in connection with the disappearance of 850,000 Bitcoins. At the time, the equivalent of approximately a half billion dollars.

By the end of 2018 those coins would be worth a staggering $16 Billion+...

This is the series of events that brought him to this point.
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Could Bitcoin's price rise from $100 to $1000 be the work of ONE mysterious person?

In a paper published by Science Direct, researchers Neil Gandal, JT Hamrick, Tyler Moore, and Tali Oberman outline their belief that the USD/BTC exchange rate rose from $150 to $1000 - though the actions of a single person over a 60 day period.

The abstract summary of their finding reads:

"To its proponents, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin offers the potential to disrupt payment systems and traditional currencies. It has also been subject to security breaches and wild price fluctuations. This paper identifies and analyzes the impact of suspicious trading activity on the Mt. Gox Bitcoin currency exchange, in which approximately 600,000 bitcoins (BTC) valued at $188 million were fraudulently acquired. During both periods, the USD-BTC exchange rate rose by an average of four percent on days when suspicious trades took place, compared to a slight decline on days without suspicious activity. Based on rigorous analysis with extensive robustness checks, the paper demonstrates that the suspicious trading activity likely caused the unprecedented spike in the USD-BTC exchange rate in late 2013, when the rate jumped from around $150 to more than $1,000 in two months."

They claim two trading bots did the footwork, named in their paper "Markus" and "Willey" - making fake trades and driving up the price, all while the owner of Mt.Gox was covering up that they had been hacked (That story here) making concealment of their activity especially easy.

You can read their full research paper here.

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Author: Oliver Redding
Seattle News Desk


The most hated man in crypto is plotting his comeback...

For those new to the cryptocurrency scene, you may be lucky enough to never have heard of Mt. Gox.

Mt.Gox was a bitcoin exchange that at one point up to 70% of Bitcoin trades were going through.

It began in 2010, and ended horribly in 2014 when they announced that approximately 850,000 bitcoins belonging to customers and the company were missing and likely stolen, an amount valued at more than $450 million at the time.

Mark Karpeles, although not the sites founder, bought the site in 2011 and took over as CEO.  While his level of personal fault has been debated, he was the man in charge when in June of the same year when in response to a security breach Mt. Gox moved bitcoins from "cold storage" and it was all downhill from there. 

Then, beginning in Nov 2013 customers were experiencing delays of weeks to months in withdrawing cash from their accounts, and by Feb 2014, Mt. Gox halted all bitcoin withdrawals, and by the end of the month the fiasco was blamed for a 36% loss in Bitcoin's value.

Fast forward to today - Mark Karpeles is back and considering starting an ICO to bring Mt.Gox back.

In a post updating people on their bankrupcy, he laid out the option to:

Launch an ICO to raise money to hypothetically revive MtGox. This sounds more challenging, both legally and because there is no guarantee of raising enough to revive MtGox. In case there is not enough raised it could still be locked to be distributed to creditors, which would be better than nothing.

The upside, the revival of Mt.Gox would mean paying some of their debts, however - the price of Bitcoin has risen dramtically since then, so people would be recieving a fraction of it's current value back.

The downside... well, Mt.Gox would be back. 

Mark knows where he stands in the community, saying:

At this point there is little hope for anything to be actually accomplished, and I have been pondering how to proceed should I want to solve this matter myself - which sounds better than being the object of hate of thousands of people for the rest of my days (it seems I already am anyway, yet sometimes some people send me nice messages, that keeps me going).

Do I expect anything to actually happen? Unlikely.

The price tag on a Mt.Gox revival is placed at $245 Million, and it's hard to imagine an investor seeing a bright future in a Mt.Gox comeback.

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Author: Ross Davis
San Francisco News Desk