The downfall of Mt. Gox continues to highlight the importance of greater transparency and accountability within the cryptocurrency industry.
In the early days of BTC, Mt.Gox was by far the most famous Bitcoin exchange in the world. In 2013, the company's Tokyo-based company bought and sold more than 70% of bitcoin. But by early 2014, it had collapsed shockingly, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for investors and traders.
The decline of Mount Mount. Gox is a crucial moment in Bitcoin's entire cryptocurrency history in China, and several regulators, investment analysts and technical experts continue to study the case scientifically to avoid such a situation in the future. In addition, this classic legend has sounded the alarm for the cryptocurrency field, showing the potential risks and traps related to the investment of digital currency trading projects.
Mt.Mt.Gox: early years
Mt.Mt.Gox was founded in 2010 through Jed McCaleb, a programmer and entrepreneur who previously founded the document sharing Internet eDonkey2000. At that time, Bitcoin was still an unpopular technology, with the exception of some enthusiasts and developers, most people did not know about it. Mt.Mt.Gox was one of the first exchanges where users could trade bitcoin with legal property, quickly gaining popularity among early adopters and investors.
In 2011, McCaleb sold Mt.Gox to Marco Castifano, a French software engineer who had previously worked on a variety of new projects, including an online sales market called Magic:The Gathering Online Exchange. Karpeles moved its head office to Tokyo, Japan, and rapidly expanded business processes, opened up markets, and increased strong support for additional cryptocurrencies. This affected Mt.Gox 's entry into the most famous login password trading ecosystem in the early 2010s.
Hacker intrusion
In February 2014, Mt.Gox suddenly withdrew from its platform because of technical difficulties and security concerns. The company withdrew from its website and there were rumors that the exchange had been hacked. A few days later, Castifano held a press conference in Tokyo, where she verified the news. Gox was hacked, and criminals stole 850000 bitcoins, which were worth about $450 million.
That mountain. The Gox hack is one of the largest thefts in bitcoin and cryptocurrency history, and it has had a profound impact on a wider range of areas. During the period after the release of the information, the price of Bitcoin continued to fall, and many investors and traders lost confidence in the security and stability of digital currency exchanges.
Complications of Mt.Mt.Gox hacking
For some time after that. Gox hackers have huge uncertainties and concerns about what happened to the stolen bitcoin and who should be held responsible for the theft. Castifano initially claimed that the coin had been stolen because of a "bug" on the mountain. Gox's app, but experts and scholars in the Bitcoin community generally criticize such expressions.
In March 2014, Mt.Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan, and the Japanese government detained the company's property. Castifano was eventually arrested and tested for embezzlement and fraud in connection with the bankruptcy of the exchange, but he has always claimed that he is innocent and that he can only control the victims of the situation.
That mountain. The bankruptcy liquidation process of Gox is complex and long-lasting, there are several legal and regulatory tests, and the claims of creditors and investors also compete healthily. In 2018, a Japanese court ruled. Gox's assets need to be settled and distributed among creditors-a process that is still under way.
Is the reimbursement process going well?
In 2018, after years of legal and regulatory struggle and research, a Japanese people's court approved a plan to compensate landslide victims. Gox Hack . The plan, proposed by a people's court-appointed trustee, provides for a private equity fund to own the rest of the bitcoin and distribute it to creditors. Trustee Nobuaki Koizumi is responsible for supervising the distribution of the rest of the funds.
The first step in the plan is to convert the remaining bitcoins into cash. The trustees sold more than 35000 bitcoins and 34000 bitcoin BCH on various cryptocurrency exchanges, raising more than $400m. This is a huge achievement because it is the most influential cryptocurrency market sale in a single entity line in history.
There are many delays.
In March 2020, the trustee announced the implementation of a new system that allows creditors to make clear claims for the remaining assets. Creditors are required to submit direct evidence of their claims, including bank returns, transaction details and identity documents. The deadline for filing claims was set at October 2020 and subsequently extended to December.
In December 2020, the trustee announced that it had received 99.9% of the debt from creditors. The total amount of claims filed is about $16 billion, which is much higher than being able to allocate the remaining assets. This will be a big challenge for Koizumi because she must know how to distribute the remaining assets evenly.
In January 2021, the trustee submitted a remedial plan bill to the court. The plan recommends that the remaining assets be distributed in bitcoin rather than cash, as this would prevent the need to sell the remaining cryptocurrency and avoid harming the sales market. The plan also suggests that creditors consider accepting bitcoin or cash repayments, with a conversion rate based on the market price at the time of distribution.
Sure enough, the proposed recovery plan was reflected by differences among creditors. Some creditors welcomed the plan warmly because it brought the probability of higher repayments in the event of a rise in the price of bitcoin. However, others are skeptical about this, because the value of Bitcoin is very uncertain, it is prone to large fluctuations. Some creditors also expressed anxiety about the potential harm of receiving Bitcoin reimbursement.
Recent development trend
In the first week of September 2022, Koizumi announced that Mt.Gox users before September 1. 15 explicitly lodge or transfer claims. That date was then extended to January 10, 2023, when Koizumi urged creditors to go through the necessary processes before the deadline.
Kobayashi informed creditors that those who were unable to do so would not be able to receive his assets quickly or would be required to provide multiple documents to their leaders in Japan for franchisees. Even then, they can only receive payment in Japanese yen.
However, the deadline was extended to March 10 because "progress has been made in restoring creditor selection and filing", which is also a reason for the change. In fact, as part of the March 7 announcement, the trustee strictly enforced a January notice reminding creditors who had not filed for repayment, we must file the repayment by March 10-an additional two months as part of the repair plan explicitly proposed earlier.
Koizumi is unable to provide an extension, which will be available at Mt. Suffer losses of one's own. GOX chooses a loan repayment method and enters their information into the online recovery claim submission system.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that in all these developments, Mt.Gox Investment Fund is the main creditor of the closed bitcoin exchange, opting for early payment of bitcoin rather than a higher payment that takes longer to wait at the end of the second world war. Prepayment means that creditors get about 90% of their maturing accounts. The failed trustee does not have to sell tokens to obtain the legal assets required for payment, because creditors also choose to pay in bitcoin.
Recently, the explicit settlement of claims and claims to Mt.Gox creditors also seem to have been changed. According to an official source, the deadline for filing claims has been extended by another month, from March 10, 2023 to April 6, 2023, allowing creditors to file for a further period of time. Asset allocation has been delayed for another month, starting on October 31 instead of September 31. thirty。
This report by the Mt.Gox trustee lists several reasons for the delay in the deadline, including the progress made by restoring creditors in terms of selection and filing. Creditors have multiple options to accept payments, including one-time payments, bank transfers, based on transfer service providers or cryptocurrency exchanges or fund custodians.
Lessons learned and prospects for the future
An important lesson learned from studying in that mountain. The collapse of Gox is the significance of transparency and accountability. Many critics believe that the seriousness of the hacking is mainly due to the transparency and confidentiality of the exchange's operations. Nowadays, the relativity of the more reputable cryptocurrency exchanges is more transparent, and some exchanges often publish financial audits and reports to comfort customers and investors.
Another lesson I learned from the mountains. The failure of Gox requires better risk control and financial control. In the early days of Bitcoin, many exchanges were run by technology enthusiasts and entrepreneurs who had little experience in financial or risk control. Today, the exchange has a more efficient and experienced management team to implement better financial control and risk control practices.
In the end, the mountain. Gox network hackers have revealed the importance of strengthening the management of the cryptocurrency industry. Since the collapse, regulators around the world have proposed new systems and requirements to protect investors and traders, including stricter compliance management and understanding of customer needs. While some people may think that this requirement is too strict, others feel that it is necessary for them to protect customers from fraud.
That mountain. Gox once again issued a warning about the potential risks and dangers of digital currency, focusing on the need for greater clarity, accountability and risk control.