Fans of the popular Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange are still upset over the site’s closure and its inability to find 850,000 units of the digital currency that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Somehow, the company has managed to come across 200,000 of those missing Bitcoins and it turns out that they were in an old wallet that Mt. Gox employees never managed to look in.
The 200,00 Bitcoins, which are worth at least $100 million, belong to the service’s users. So, the company’s “lucky” find should make people quite happy as long as they are able to get back some of their lost coins.
Mt. Gox recently allowed people to get back onto the site in order to check their Bitcoin balances and in some cases, the balances had changed for the better.
We believed there were no bitcoins left in old wallets, but found 199,999.99 bitcoins on March 7, – Mt. Gox
The bitcoins were immediately reported to attorneys on March 8 and then moved to offline storage (presumably somewhere that they won’t go missing.)
These bitcoin movements, including the change in the manner in which these coins were stored, had been reported to the court and the supervisor by counsels, – Mt. Gox
Some unanswered questions regarding the fraudulent withdrawals that crippled the site still remain. Shortly after the issue was announced, hackers posted photos allegedly from Mt. Gox servers that appeared to show the company with 100,000 more Bitcoins than it publicly announced.
Withdrawals are still being blocked on the site and have been since February 7, but Mt. Gox seems hopefully that it will be able to return soon. Now that people are able to view their balances and the company has come across 200,000 of the missing Bitcoins, maybe Mt. Gox is not dead after all.
Based upon a statement from Steven L. Woodrow, of the Edelson law firm, they were able to receive approval to track some of Mt. Gox’s Bitcoin movements. Woodrow continued on to say that they were tracking 180,000 Bitcoins and that once they got close to finding them, Mt. Gox suddenly discovered them in an old wallet.
Whether or not Mt. Gox was trying to take advantage of the fraudulent withdrawals is still unknown, but at least it has returned 200,000 of the coins.
Question – Has Mt. Gox been completely honest during the investigation or was it trying to steal some of the Bitcoins?
Summary: Mt. Gox has found 200,000 Bitcoins in an old company wallet. The coins are worth at least $100 million. They are now in safe keeping and should be returned to users eventually.
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