How the exchange that handled 70% of the world's Bitcoin vanished along with $470 million (Mt. Gox)

Imagine a platform that processed nearly one in two Bitcoin transactions in the world. Millions of people entrusted it with their savings, treating it as the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank. And then, one day in 2014, the platform simply announced: the money was gone. So began the story of Mt. Gox — a collapse still regarded as the most notorious in the crypto industry.

Mt. Gox began its journey in Japan as a trading exchange for cards from the collectible game Magic: The Gathering, but it quickly transformed into the largest Bitcoin exchange on the planet. At the peak of its influence, it handled 70% of all Bitcoin transactions worldwide. For millions of users, the name Mt. Gox was synonymous with the very idea of "buying cryptocurrency" — the platform seemed so dominant and familiar that the question of its reliability simply never arose.

But behind the facade of a technology leader lay a catastrophe that had been unfolding for years. As early as 2011, coins began to be gradually withdrawn from the exchange — quietly, in small batches, so as not to attract attention. In parallel, the company's management spent years falsifying financial reports, concealing a hole in the balance sheet.

The reckoning came in 2014, when Mt. Gox announced the loss of 850,000 bitcoins — worth roughly $470 million at the time. The official version blamed an external hack. However, the subsequent investigation revealed a different picture: the funds had been drained gradually over the course of several years.

The consequences for the victims proved long and painful. The company's head, Mark Karpelès, was ultimately found guilty only of data falsification and given a suspended sentence of 30 months, while the court dismissed the charge of embezzlement. Thousands of creditors waited for years — and only from 2024–2025 did they begin to receive partial payouts, more than a decade after the collapse.

Published 1 February 2025