On March 26, toyokeizai.net revealed a new mystery surrounding the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange bankruptcy. The article revealed that 530,000 bitcoins had been withdrawn after the exchange was declared insolvent on Feb. 28, 2013.
In the most recent developments, tokyokeizai.net reported, “A creditor’s representative filed a petition with the Tokyo District Court dated March 11, noting inexplicable post-insolvency developments at MTGOX. Appended to the petition were materials from the website COINSIGHT showing a bitcoin transaction history in which evidence was presented indicating transactions of at least 530,000 bitcoins at MTGOX from March 7 through 10.”
The article also stated, “Requests regarding massive bitcoin withdrawals were made which should have been impossible for anyone other than those with special bitcoin exchange access rights.”
When the Mt. Gox exchange filed for bankruptcy protection, it claimed that hackers had stolen more than 850,000 bitcoins by exploiting a security flaw in the bitcoin exchange code. Since the filing, the company reported finding 200,000 bitcoins according to The International Business Times.
A Tokyo police investigation is currently underway and, according to a statement released on the Mt. Gox website, the company intends to cooperate with “competent” authorities.
Bitcoin is a virtual, tradable online currency. The value of a bitcoin is highly volatile, which results in the use of the currency for speculative purposes by day traders. This makes the currency a very risky investment. For more information on that, see my post Pump and dump—bitcoin style.
