Mt.Gox

Mt Gox, a bitcoin exchange based in Japan, was the biggest bitcoin exchange in the world at the start of 2014, handling more than 70% of all bitcoin transactions globally. It went insolvent at the end of February of that year.

Anyone who used Mt. Gox lost access to their assets, and the incident serves as a warning to cryptocurrency investors. Although not all of the assets were lost, those that were having been frozen for many years. Though things appear to be improving at the moment, there are still many unanswered questions. Let's first examine how we arrived here before discussing how a remedy might be in the works.

Mt. Gox was the target of a significant attack and lost about 740,000 bitcoins (6% of all bitcoins in existence at the time), which were worth approximately $3 billion at the time and €460 million at the time (at the time of the hack). The company's bank accounts were short an extra $27 million. Even though 200,000 bitcoins were eventually found, the other 650,000 were never found.

• Year: 2014
• Damage: $3 billion at the time and €460 million at the time