Mt. Gox, once the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, has been defunct since 2014.
But the question of how much bitcoin the now-defunct exchange had when it collapsed still lingers.
According to a report from Bitcoin.com, Mt. Gox had around 200,000 BTC when it filed for bankruptcy in February 2014.
However, later that year, the court-appointed trustee in charge of overseeing the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case said that he had found around 650,000 BTC in an old digital wallet belonging to the exchange.
This would mean that Mt. Gox had around 850,000 BTC when it collapsed.
However, there are a few factors that could account for the discrepancy between the two reports.
First of all, it’s possible that Mt. Gox simply had more than one digital wallet and the 200,000 BTC figure only represents one of them.
Secondly, the 650,000 BTC figure may include bitcoins that were stolen from Mt. Gox customers during the hack that ultimately led to the exchange’s demise.
In any case, it’s clear that Mt. Gox had a significant amount of bitcoin when it went bankrupt and those bitcoins are now worth a fortune.
If those bitcoins were to be sold today, they would be worth over $5 billion at current prices.
So whatever happened to all those bitcoins? According to the trustee overseeing the case, they have been slowly selling them off over the past few years to pay back creditors. So far, around $1 billion worth of bitcoin has been sold and the process is still ongoing.
As for the remaining bitcoins, it’s unclear what will happen to them. It’s possible that they will be sold off as well in order to raise more money for creditors, but it’s also possible that they will be kept by the trustee for future use or simply returned to Mt.
Gox’s former owner Mark Karpeles.
In any case, the story of Mt. Gox is a cautionary tale for anyone holding a large amount of bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.
The fact that such a large exchange could collapse so suddenly highlights how risky these investments can be.