Once at the pinnacle of the cryptocurrency world, Mt. Gox suffered a catastrophic hack in 2014, leading to the loss of hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins and the exchange’s irreversible collapse. The hacker siphoned off approximately 650,000 BTC over three years, marking one of the most significant thefts in history. The stolen Bitcoins were believed to be laundered through BTC-e, a platform established by Alexander Vinnik and Aleksandr Bilyuchenko, both later convicted for related crimes.
In June 2011, hackers targeted Mt. Gox, founded by Jed McCaleb, who was also involved in the creation of Ripple and Stellar (XLM). They exploited a security flaw in the exchange, using a fake account and stolen identity information of Mt. Gox official Auden McKernan to manipulate account balances.
Part of the hack involved an account that displayed Bitcoins for sale, leading to an artificial price drop on the exchange. As a result, Bitcoin’s price plummeted to $0.01, allowing the hacker to purchase the cryptocurrency at this incredibly low price and subsequently launder it through BTC-e.
The current value of the stolen cryptocurrencies is known to exceed $3 billion. Following the incident, security experts heavily criticized Mt. Gox for its weak security protocols. The exchange promised to improve its system and reimburse affected users.
While former investors are still awaiting compensation, recent reports indicated that they had been contacted via email. Despite the Mt. Gox debacle, Bitcoin’s price eventually recovered, reaching new highs and igniting investor excitement, with analysts predicting future prices over $100,000.