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Magic The Gathering To Bitcoin: Mt. Gox's Fall
Mt. Gox: The Rise And Fall
OVERVIEW
Magic The Gathering To Bitcoin: Mt. Gox's Fall 🐕️
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Bitcoin collapsed -6.38%, the altcoin market couldn’t hold onto the $1 trillion level, and it’s just an all around blood bath. 🩸
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CoinGlass Liquidations
$370 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours - and $321 million of those liquidations were on the long side of the market.
In today’s Litepaper, a little walk down memory lane because of two major crypto events: Mt. Gox’s repayments to victims and Jump Crypto under investigation by the CFTC.
Also on deck: a look at some price levels analysts and traders are looking at for Bitcoin and Ethereum. 📰
Before we dive in, here’s today’s crypto market heatmap:
And here’s a look at crypto’s total and altcoin market cap YTD:
NEWS
The Rise and Fall of Mt. Gox 😭
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Once upon a time, in the land of crypto, there was Mt. Gox. Handling 70% of all $BTC transactions, it was the king of the land - until someone forgot to lock the damn gate. What happened? 💥
Spoiler: it ended in disaster.
From Magic The Gathering To Bitcoin
Jed McCaleb started this circus in 2010 with a site meant for trading Magic: The Gathering cards. By 2011, he passed the reins to Mark Karpelès, a coder more interested in cat videos than business.
Karpelès revamped the site's backend, and for a while, Mt. Gox thrived. But its security was about as robust as a paper umbrella in a hurricane. Hackers struck in 2011, snatching 80,000 BTC, setting the stage for what was to come. 🚀
The Big Meltdown: Chaos and Cluelessness
Fast forward to 2014. Mt. Gox was a ticking time bomb. The exchange halted withdrawals, blaming a supposed Bitcoin software flaw. Then came the bombshell: 850,000 Bitcoins had vanished.
Karpelès, the self-proclaimed "King of Bitcoin," was too busy dreaming up a Bitcoin Café to notice his empire crumbling. The café, like Mt. Gox’s security, never saw the light of day. 🔍
What Happened After
Mark Karpelès ended up with legal battles and data falsification charges. Despite its catastrophic failure, Mt. Gox pushed other exchanges to tighten their security protocols. The saga wrapped up in 2021 with a court-approved rehabilitation plan - sort of.
Three years after that court decision and a decade in total later, victims getting what’s theirs back. 💵
Mt. Gox Set to Repay Victims After 10-Year Wait
Announced today, starting the first week of July, victims will start seeing Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash ($BCH) repayments, trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi confirmed. After years of delays, the moment has arrived.
As the announcement hit, Bitcoin dropped from $62,450 to about $60,300 - a -3.26% drop. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is flirting with breaking the $60,000 level.
Market analysts predict these repayments could put selling pressure on Bitcoin. Early investors might be tempted to cash out their significantly appreciated assets. 😱