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The shadiest tale in bitcoin just got even shadier

Published Mar 21st, 2014 7:25AM EDT
Mt Gox News

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Who would have thought that people would run into problems when a former hub for swapping “Magic: The Gathering” trading cards became the largest bitcoin exchange in the world? The Wall Street Journal on Thursday evening reported that Mt. Gox has found 200,000 missing bitcoins. The news comes nearly a month after the exchange’s loss of roughly 850,000 bitcoins drove it to file for bankruptcy protection in late February.

Mt. Gox said recently that a major breach resulted in the theft of $500 million worth of bitcoin. Meanwhile, hackers that infiltrated the system cried “fraud” and said they had evidence that Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles still had control of the bitcoin.

We may never know what really happened.

A statement from Mt. Gox suggests that the missing 200,000 bitcoins were found in a wallet that the company no longer uses. “We believed there were no bitcoins left in old wallets, but found 199,999.99 bitcoins on March 7,” Karpeles said in the statement.

There are still approximately 650,000 bitcoins left unaccounted for.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.