Mt. Gox Finds 200,000 Bitcoins and More Questions than Answers

March 24, 2014 By: Kevin Xu

The Mt. Gox rabbit-hole goes even deeper.

Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox has “found” 200,000 in missing bitcoins.

Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan and the U.S. due to security vulnerabilities, an ongoing hack, and a mysterious disappearance of around 800,000 bitcoins (valued previously at a half billion dollars), which brought the exchange to insolvency.

The 200,000 bitcoins were found in an offline digital wallet, simply a computer file that grants access to the bitcoin owner’s funds.

Mt. Gox CEO, Mark Karpeles, notified lawyers that this wallet was previously thought to be empty, but on further examination, found it contained a quarter of its missing coins.

Adding to the Mt. Gox saga, Toyo Keizai reports that Mt. Gox carried out a 530,000-bitcoin withdrawal on March 7 to March 10, after the exchange had become insolvent.

This transaction was listed on a petition filed by a creditor’s representative and cited Coinsight.org, a website which keeps track of trading activity on major bitcoin exchanges.

Mt. Gox had supposedly lost all of its bitcoins according to a press conference held on February 28.

Since the transactions happened after the claims of insolvency, does it mean Mt. Gox is still in possession of these funds?

It’s just another question in a growing list of mysteries.