Nine years ago today: Recalling the Bitcoin Exchange Failure that Was Much Larger Than FTX

Although FTX’s collapse last January rattled the Bitcoin ecosystem in a big way, a much bigger failure nine years ago caused it to be even more damaged. What can we learn from this? The collapse of FTX, a crypto-empire that defrauded customers, investors, and employees to the tune $8 billion, rattled the Bitcoin ecosystem. Many cryptocurrency novices are unaware that Mt. After a series of hacks, Gox went bankrupt. Customers lost over 800,000. Bitcoin in the fall, making FTX seem like a brief moment in time. Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, whose domain name (MtGox.com), was originally registered in 2007 in order to host a trading site for “Magic: The Gathering”, a popular game card. It began operating in late 2010 as a rudimentary Bitcoin exchange. The platform began to attract a lot of traffic and the owner sold it to Mark Karpel’s. Karpel?s, a passionate programmer and Bitcoin enthusiast, improved the code of the platform to handle a greater volume and more buy and sell orders. The exchange’s failure proved that he was not capable of doing a good job in both the technical and managerial aspects of the business. He tried to fill the role of Mt. Mt. Gox stopped trading and went offline. Mt. Over several years, attackers had exploited Gox’s infrastructure multiple times. The attackers had gradually robbed Gox of its bitcoin by manipulating transactions data — a characteristic known transaction malleability — and leading to Mt. Mt. Gox was offline for a short time and its team issued an announcement blaming the Bitcoin protocol for failing to properly monitor transactions. The exchange would inspect the Bitcoin blockchain to confirm the withdrawal transaction ID upon receiving a withdrawal request. This is a hash that was created from transaction data. A transaction ID can only be finalized once it is confirmed on the Blockchain. This characteristic allows attackers to alter the transaction data, but not the inputs or outputs, and thus alter its ID. The result? Mt. Gox’s database wouldn’t show a successful withdrawal because the transaction ID that Gox was looking for would never make it into a block. However, the attacker would still get the bitcoin as the altered transaction got confirmed. This was not a Mt. Gox and not the Bitcoin protocol. This accounting discrepancy was not, surprisingly, ever noticed. However, an internal Mt. A Gox document detailing the extent of the hole it had dug for itself was leaked. The document stated that more than 800,000 bitcoin had been stolen. It was worth nearly $430 million at the time and almost $18 trillion now. Nine years later, customers still wait to get their bitcoin back. It was estimated that Mt. Gox was responsible for as much as 70% global bitcoin trades. FTX’s collapse was a fraud worth more than $8 billion, which is less than half of the bitcoin that Mt. Gox. Gox. Both instances saw the chief executives fail their clients who had placed their trust in them to manage their bitcoin. All exchanges face the constant threat of fraud, error, or bankruptcy. It is important to treat this as such. It’s never too late for you to take control of your bitcoin and get into self-custody.