MtGox finds 200,000 of its missing bitcoins

MtGox, the major Bitcoin exchange that filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, has said in a statement that they have found 200,000 of their missing bitcoins.

The coins were found in an old digital wallet from 2011, and have a value of about $115 million.

Despite the major find, the company is still missing 650,000 of its own and customer's bitcoins.

"MtGox had certain old-format wallets which were used in the past and which, MtGox thought, no longer held any bitcoins," said Mt Gox CEO Mark Karpeles, "however on March 7, 2014, MtGox confirmed that an old-format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 bitcoin."

To avoid having the new find stolen by hackers, the coins were moved to offline wallets this week.

Hackers have stolen the rest of the coins, which amount to about 7 percent of all bitcoins ever mined.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 21 Mar 2014 22:49

nonoitall

Worst accounting practices ever. I'm sorry for the people who lost money with them, but the sooner they vanish into nonexistence, the better it will be for Bitcoin. Though Bitcoin itself has been surprisingly resilient through this whole mess, a tribute to its maturing infrastructure.

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22.3.2014 05:16 #1

Jemborg

So let me get this right... hackers stole about 350-400 million dollars?

And BitCoin is secure because...???

Its a lot easier being righteous than right.

22.3.2014 14:16 #2

Bozobub

BitCOin is secure, until you give someone else the cryptokey defining your coins, pretty much. At that point, well...

22.3.2014 17:02 #3

nonoitall

Originally posted by Jemborg: And BitCoin is secure because...???
Bitcoin itself is arguably the most secure form of money that has existed thus far. It can't be counterfeited, it can't be double-spent, and it can be spent without handing over the means of spending to the receiving party (unlike credit cards and bank transfers). No government can arbitrarily print more to drop its value. As long as you can keep a string of numbers safe from prying eyes, nobody is going to be able to take it from you.

If you choose to transfer large amounts of Bitcoin to an incompetent party who doesn't know how to do accounting and can't hold onto their keys though, well it's about the same as if you hand a bunch of cash to a stranger in an alley and hope he'll be around to give it back the next month.

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22.3.2014 19:19 #4

Jemborg

Well it really worked in that case... to the tune of nearly half a billion dollars!

With all due respect, maybe you guys aught to look at it again.

Its a lot easier being righteous than right.

22.3.2014 23:22 #5

nonoitall

If someone puts half a billion dollars in a safe, then posts the safe's combination to Facebook, does that mean we should blame the safe when the money gets stolen? Because that's basically what you're doing if you blame Bitcoin for MtGox's poor security and shoddy accounting practices.

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23.3.2014 00:25 #6

xboxdvl2

Originally posted by Jemborg: So let me get this right... hackers stole about 350-400 million dollars?

And BitCoin is secure because...???

don't think the hackers actually stole them ,think its more they misplaced them.Kinda like having a safe full of money and moving the safe and forgetting where you put it.

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23.3.2014 07:49 #7

hearme0

I ask you all........is it "stealing" to digitally 'take' something that has NO VALUE?

Is this not the same as stealing someone's bag of weed??

What the Hell is someone gonna do about it?? Report it to the police?? NO! The same should hold true for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is for anti-government/anti-society LOSERS (some exceptions of course)!

26.3.2014 13:33 #8

KillerBug

Originally posted by hearme0: I ask you all........is it "stealing" to digitally 'take' something that has NO VALUE?

Is this not the same as stealing someone's bag of weed??

What the Hell is someone gonna do about it?? Report it to the police?? NO! The same should hold true for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is for anti-government/anti-society LOSERS (some exceptions of course)! 3 Questions and a statement...3 answers and a counter-statement:

1.) If you can exchange it for goods and services then it has value...and you can do that with Bitcoin. Remember that the US dollar (the most accepted currency on earth) is based on nothing at all, while bitcoin is at least based on super-complex math problems.

2.) It would be the same in Colorado (where weed is legal), assuming the bag of weed was (at current bitcoin price) about 60,000LBS; too big to load onto a flatbed semi truck.

3.) Bitcoin is not illegal...if they could prove who stole the bitcoins from MTGOX, the police would be very happy to make arrests. That's one of the problems the hackers have to deal with ...cashing them in would be a guaranteed trip to prison.

4.) It is for anti-government or anti-society people? It certainly seems anti-government...but given the governments we are talking about, that makes it pro-society. Bitcoin is used by the people who exposed the illegal government spying, and bitcoin is used by people who want to protect themselves from said spying.

26.3.2014 20:50 #9

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