BTC Accounting To 10K Moved To Anonymous Wallets Associated With Mt. Gox Hack

10K BTC moved to anonymous wallets.
BTC-e exchange founder’s Vinnik connection with the Mt. Gox hack.
The tokyo-based crypto exchange hack and the recent FTX crash shook the industry.

Anonymous Activity

A crypto wallet associated with the closed cryptocurrency trading firm BTC-e moved 10,000 Bitcoins (BTC) to several crypto exchanges, personal wallets, and other bases.

As per media reports, the wallet addresses associated with the defunct crypto exchange BTC-e transferred BTC as mentioned above, worth of estimated $167 million, into two anonymous wallets, since its largest transaction dating back to August 2017.

As of 23 November, 3,500 BTC were moved to several wallets, whereas another 6,500 were shifted to a single address.

On 24 November, CryptoQuant founder Ki SYoung Ju tweeted informing about the case-

“7-year-old 10,000 $BTC moved today. No surprise, it’s from criminals, like most of the old Bitcoins. It’s the BTC-e exchange wallet related to the 2014 Mt. Gox hack. They sent 65 BTC to @h itbtc a few hours ago, so it’s not a gov auction or something.”

Young said that a while ago, 65 BTC were transferred to HitBTC, without any auction or government’s involvement. After that, he told the crypto exchange to suspend the account for fraudulent activity.

Mt. Gox was a Tokyo-based exchange that was in business within the period of 2010 to 2014. It was handling 70-80% of the world’s total BTC transactions at that time. The name came came intor public limelight after the acronym “Magic:The Gathering Online Exchange” started floating around.

BTC-e, Mt.Gox and The FTX

The company had become quite popular in the crypto industry and must have attracted determined hackers. As a result, many problems also arose even when the Mt. Gox was in operation. According to the reports, BTC ranging from 650,000 to 850,000 were lost, belonging to customers and the company.

In 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) forced BTC-e to shut down its operations, charging it with involvement in money laundering. The founder alleged operator of exchange Alexander Vinnik, was arrested by the authorities in Greece in 2017 by the U.S. Department of Justice for the funds acquired in the infamous hack of the crypto exchange Mt. Gox.

As per sources, Vinnik has a direct relationship with the hack of Mt. Gox. Vinnik was imprisoned for 5 years in France in 2020, then extradited to the U.S. the same year.

The analytics firm Chainalysis said, in comparison to the latest FTX crash, that Mt. Gox was much worse.The firm also highlights that the crypto industry has survived many times from downfalls much worse than the FTX collapse.

Andrew is a blockchain developer who developed his interest in cryptocurrencies while his post-graduation. He is a keen observer of details and shares his passion for writing along with being a developer. His backend knowledge about blockchain helps him give a unique perspective to his writing