MtGox coins on the move

goldpelican

goldpelican

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http://www.coindesk.com/gox-money-moving-through-block-chain/

$113m in Gox Bitcoins Believed To Be Moving Through Block Chain

Large amounts of bitcoins previously handled by Mt Gox, which have lain dormant for years, have started moving on the block chain.

Since the exchange blew up at the end of last month, people have been wondering where the stolen coins went, and have tried to trace some movements between Gox addresses. One participant on the bitcoin talk forum recalled an IRC conversation between Gox CEO Mark Karpeles and various users, which allegedly took place on June 23, 2011.

During their conversation, Karpeles (a.k.a. MagicalTux) offered to demonstrate that the exchange owned large numbers of coins, by sending a uniquely identifiable amount to a given address. He sent 424242.42424242 bitcoins to a specific address beginning with 1eHhgW6vquBY. Sure enough, they showed up.

A few weeks later, that large amount of bitcoins was broken into two smaller amounts. Then, more transactions occurred, peeling off 50,000 bitcoins at a time into separate wallets, possibly as a means of moving them into cold storage.

Most of these 50,000 bitcoin wallets were recombined on 16 November, 2011, into two separate wallets. One of these contained 500,000 bitcoins, while the other contained 50,000.

The 50,000 bitcoin address was created on that date, and was then dormant until July, 2012, when it began receiving small transactions along with several other outputs. However, no coins left that wallet, until today, when its 50,000 bitcoins were sent to another address, as part of outputs from various bitcoin addresses totalling 180,000 bitcoins ($113 million).

Since then, these coins have been rapidly splitting, with coins being subdivided repeatedly. One branch was found to have been splitting every 30 minutes in what appeared to be an automated fashion. This suggests that there may be some code splitting the coins.

We don't know for certain that the 50,000-bitcoin address is indeed owned by Mt Gox, but it seems likely. The other, larger, wallet went through several transactions, with the bulk of the coins being sent to an address that was verified as Mt Gox-owned on the block chain.

The leaked Mt Gox crisis strategy document claims assets of 2,000 bitcoins, contained in a hot wallet, adding that the cold storage had been wiped out.

read more at link
Click to expand...

Shenanigans. Someone pocketed a cold storage wallet perhaps?
 
nullc on Reddit, has a a pretty good theory that the Karp is preparing to restart Gox in some capacity.

FWIW, the gox transaction API (https://data.mtgox.com/api/0/bitcoin_tx.php) is now returning TXID: 442ef31f93f339398ba79f0aa4bc0222baf81a9ba4dd5bd5bea465332dacdabb which is a spend using coins sent earlier to the same address as the gigantic transaction.
Unless the MTGox API has started lying I'd consider this positive confirmation that the earlier 200k BTC transaction was an MTGox transaction.
People have been asking on IRC why some of it is being broken up. I could only speculate but thats what you need to do to prepare a hotwallet to support a high volume of transactions (so you have many coins to spend so you don't get stuck waiting for your change to confirm while avoiding spending unconfirmed change, which MTGox has always done).
Edit: Sturles pointed out to me that the splitting behavior is consistent with the splitLargeOutputs function in the leaked gox source code, suggesting that portion of the coins was dropped into the MTGox online wallet and the system is now automatically breaking it up.

200kBTC has been transferred from suspected gox controlled addresses to new addresses, and then part of those funds has been transferred again and again, being broken into small pieces in a manner consistent with the MTGox software and operations for their online wallet. Some transactions spending coins involved in this are showing up in the MTGox api.
I would speculate they are preparing to bring their site back online in some capacityl
Sorry for the lack of links, this all follows directly from the transaction ID in the thread title and the other links I've posted.

Taking the funds and moving them multiple times and then loading them into the MTGox site is not something you to in order to liquidate the coins for cash... unless you're going to bring up the MTGox site to do so.
Click to expand...

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zshct/4ee89f7cf824a85ad5f11d52604ffdebe9f01302bcea8ddec0/
 
or start a new trading site? he did register gox.com that now redirects to mtgox.com, 3 letter .com domain names are not cheap just to serve a redirect.
 
goldpelican said:
You can currently log in and check your balances on MtGox, but it is all read only.
Click to expand...

You can go to the Museum in Darwin and experience some of the sounds of Cyclone Tracy there.
Some people say it was just like being there. But I've been there with people who were there in the actual Cyclone.
One bloke reckoned it sounded more like a Budgie trying to fuck a an Emu to compare the two.

Just saying.
 
goldpelican said:
You can currently log in and check your balances on MtGox, but it is all read only.
Click to expand...

Oh good. So you can watch as a program withdraws your Bitcoins in real time.
 
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