Mt. Gox Pyramids were not a closed system

Last week Mt. Gox all but admitted the 200K in pyramid splits were theirs, and that they were moving bitcoin that was reported to the Japanese authorities over their civil rehabilitation.  The implication was it was all money Mt. Gox already had.  Not so fast.



While I have only identified pocket change (not even enough to buy Dorian lunch anywhere, maybe a candy bar) there is definitely coin that did not exist in Mt. Gox's system prior to the split and merge games they just did.  Principally because it was mined until after Mt. Gox went into bankruptcy.  You don't need to presume malice, because it most likely represents standard distributions from GHash.  Maybe.

Minesweeper 2010

Hat tip to Brews and Bitcoins for posting this one over on reddit.

Looks like some old miner swept up 20 of their old bit coins to distribute to some close friends, or pay off a mining pool payout.  Blockchain.info has no information in ownership or mining claim.

The reason I posted this, however, is to look at the mind numbing appreciation of the value of bitcoin over the past 4 years.  A mere $250 of mined coin from over four years ago is worth over a half a million dollars today.  Yowza.

If you want to play around with this yourself you can download the 1.1 release of my "Follow the Bitcoin" toy at Github.

Yes indeed, that is a pile of MtGox Coins

I was supposed to be taking this week off for a spring break trip to Legoland Cryptofornia, but this story was just too big to pass up.





Those big piles of bitcoin being pyramid split two over the past weeks?  Yes indeed, as I first saw on CoinDesk, and later saw confirmed on their own web site, Mt.Gox claims to have just that much bitcoin in their control.  To add more layers of authenticiry, a large transaction that is widely believed to belong to Mt. Gox.



In the age of the blockchain "transaction logs or it didn't happen" is the new "pics or it didn't happen."

Zeno's Paradox in 180K Bitcoins

In this CryptoCrumb we walk down then up the (alleged) MtGox pile of 180k bitcoins to show two related trees, one of 180k and one of 20k.

Follow the Breadcrumbs

Posts here will be like a breadcrumb trail.  Irregular, inconsistent, but always when needed.