What happened to Mt. Gox?

Mt. Gox was a bitcoin exchange in Tokyo that collapsed in February 2014 after hundreds of thousands of customer coins disappeared. It remains one of the best-known failures in crypto, and its creditors are still being repaid more than a decade later. Where it ranks among all thefts is covered in what is the biggest crypto hack.

What happened to Mt. Gox?

According to The Block, Jed McCaleb started Mt. Gox in 2006 as a site for trading Magic: The Gathering cards, turned it into a bitcoin exchange in 2010, and sold it to Mark Karpelès in March 2011. By early 2013 it handled more than 70% of global bitcoin transactions.

Problems with withdrawals led it to halt trading in February 2014. On February 28, 2014, it filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan, reporting about 850,000 bitcoin missing. In 2019 a Japanese court found Karpelès guilty of falsifying financial records, cleared him of embezzlement and gave him a suspended sentence.

How did the Mt. Gox hack happen?

The Block notes an earlier breach in June 2011 that took 25,000 bitcoin. The larger loss came later. In June 2023 the US Justice Department charged Russian nationals Alexey Bilyuchenko and Aleksandr Verner with conspiring to launder about 647,000 bitcoin from Mt. Gox. Prosecutors allege that from around September 2011 they had access to the server holding the exchange's wallets and private keys, and moved coins out through at least May 2014. Most were allegedly laundered through other exchanges, including BTC-e. These are allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Common attack paths like this are explained in how crypto gets hacked.

What happened to the Mt. Gox bitcoins?

Fortune reported in 2018 that about 200,000 bitcoin were later found and frozen in the estate, while about 650,000 were stolen and might never come back. In June 2018 the Tokyo District Court halted the bankruptcy and moved the case into civil rehabilitation, a process that let remaining assets go to creditors and allowed claims to be paid in bitcoin. At the time, the estate held nearly 170,000 BTC plus a similar amount of Bitcoin Cash.

When is the Mt. Gox repayment deadline?

Repayments began on July 5, 2024, when about 47,229 bitcoin went to the Japanese exchanges Bitbank and SBI VC Trade for distribution, The Block reported. Kraken later confirmed it had received bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash for its users.

On October 20, 2026, Cointelegraph reported that the Tokyo District Court approved moving the deadline for base, early lump-sum and intermediate payments from October 31, 2026, to October 31, 2027. Trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi said many creditors had not finished the required steps and others had hit payment problems. Blockchain data firm Arkham showed wallets linked to Mt. Gox still holding about 34,400 BTC, though the trustee did not disclose a figure. What creditors face in cases like this is covered in what happens if a crypto exchange goes bankrupt.