Mt. Gox’s collapse shook the Bitcoin world in a way that cannot be understated.
The once mighty Mt. Gox, where thousands of Bitcoin traders made and lost their fortunes, fell apart in February, costing Bitcoin its largest and oldest exchange.
This event in the Bitcoin ecosystem is comparable in impact to the fiat currency system losing the New York Stock Exchange. And despite how many people were hurt by Mt. Gox’s collapse, few if any details have come out about what actually happened.
And while official investigations are underway, delays have caused the Bitcoin community frustration and stress as they seem more and more to be incapable of getting to the bottom of the situation.
Enter Wiz Technologies, Tokyo-based digital security company which specializes in Bitcoin. They have been conducting their own investigation into Mt. Gox for some time now. And they’re convinced they can get to the bottom of it.
Theories
There are many theories as to what happened to the large amount of unaccounted-for bitcoins from Mt. Gox.
Cameron Winklevoss describes five different possibilities: either Mt. Gox was a victim of “transaction malleability”, they were hacked, they lost the keys to their cold storage wallets, a combination of the above, or it was an inside job.
Wiz Technologies believes the second option, but their theory is based more on research than speculation.
They point the finger at Mt. Gox’s poor security as the true reason behind the exchange’s collapse. Because Mt. Gox had never set up a control system which would monitor coins being leaked, they didn’t even realize what was happening until it was too late.
Wiz Technologies only has partial access to Mt. Gox’s records and code, though. Their data likely comes at least partially from the data leaked by IRC user “Nanashi_” which included a large portion of Mt. Gox’s source code, Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles’ private conversations, and the phone numbers & addresses of some Mt. Gox employees, among others.
Wiz Technologies believes if it were given full access to what’s left of Mt. Gox, they could discover what happened. However, with Mt. Gox’s assets now out of the hands of Karpeles and firmly in control of the bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi who has been handling most of its proceedings at this point, it may be a tall order for them to gain access.
Do you have a theory as to what happened? Tell us in the comments below!
Can Wiz Technologies Untangle The Mt. Gox Knot?
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