Bitcoin.com News last week reported that two Bitcoin addresses were created in 2013 and sent 10,001 bitcoin to many wallets. The bitcoins appeared to have been linked with Mt Gox by clustering and historiography. This was around the time that Mt Gox was attacked in June 2011. Five days later, 5,000 Bitcoins were transferred to a wallet made on the same date in 2013. The coins stash was also linked with Mt Gox.
Onchain Tale about 15,001 Bitcoin and the Mt Gox Saga
Another 5,000 so-called ‘sleeping bitcoins,’ from a wallet created on December 19, 2013, were transferred on September 4, 2022. Btcparser.com caught the act five days after 10001 bitcoins were transferred from two bitcoin addresses, almost nine years old, on the exact same day in 2013. It is not clear what happened to the 5,000 BTC that was sent Sunday September 4, 2022. They were associated with Mt Gox, a bitcoin exchange, around the time it was attacked in June 2011.
When our newsdesk reported on the 10,001 BTC associated with Mt Gox, there wasn’t much fanfare about the coins moving. Jocelyn Yang (Coindesk columnist) discussed the issue with Coin Metrics data engineer. The engineer said the bitcoins from 2013 may have been associated with “an old Kraken cold storage address, a Kraken OTC (over the counter) deal, [or] a Kraken user.” Then on September 3, 2022, the OXT researcher ErgobtcPublied a Twitter ThreadThis cites our article quoting OXT user Taisia as the administrator of the GFISchannel Telegram Group.
“By referring to the work of a well-informed OXT user, bitcoin.com [is] much closer to the mark than Coindesk,” Ergobtc said. “Despite a Kraken deposit, these coins are not sourced from Kraken. They are however sourced from Mt Gox and possibly controlled by Jeb McCaleb.”
Ergobtc further discussed the two addresses (1,& 2) and explained how OXT can backtrack the source of the coins. “Doing so leads to a large cluster with a user annotation,” Ergobtc details. “The user annotation to this cluster links to a blog post by @wizsecurity blog. Wizsec is an expert on Mt Gox saga. The blog post references an address belonging to Jeb McCaleb and wrongfully claimed by CSW.”
The Twitter thread further explains that the second transaction for 5,000 BTC was “clearly made to Coinbase.” The OXT researcher added:
This is evident by the distinctive denomination splitting and secondary splits of up to 10 BTC. Coinbase clustered addresses make it possible to co-spent splits. These coins were possibly sourced from Jeb McCaleb’s Gox saga. Kraken, Coinbase received two 5K BTC txs.
A Strange Transaction in Mt Gox on September 4
At block height 752,637, on September 4, 2022, 5,000 BTC was sent from “18xGH” and the address was created on the same day (December 19, 2013) as the two addresses that sent 10,001 BTC on Sunday, August 28, and Monday, August 29, 2022. Moreover, by backtracking the transactions, the 5,000 BTC are also connected to the Mt Gox saga and the address “1McUC.” At the time of writing, the address “bc1qp” held 4,929.43 BTC that stemmed from the 5,000 sent on Sunday. At 8:00 am (ET) Monday, the coins were distributed to many multi-signature Bitcoin addresses. Bitcoin.com News interviewed Taisia from the GFISchannel Telegram group about the recent movements.
“The situation is quite strange,” Taisia told Bitcoin.com News. “The dev of oxt.me confirmed to us that in his opinion, the bitcoins are indeed connected with Mt Gox, and possibly belong to Jed McCaleb.” The GFISchannel administrator also said she spoke with the former Mt Gox CEO Mark Karpeles who “did not directly confirm this information, although he did not rule out that it was ‘close to the truth.’”
“If these are really McCaleb’s bitcoins, why won’t he make a statement to stop speculation on this topic?” Taisia asked during her conversation with Bitcoin.com News. “And, returning to the original question, why are all these movements going on right now? In the midst of the FUD with trustee payments and Vinnick’s recent extradition to the United States.”
A blockchain parser, onchain analytics, and heuristics again discovered thousands upon thousands of Bitcoins that had an intriguing past. These were the ancient bitcoins which sat indefinitely for almost nine years, only to be woken up by $19.9K BTC. It should be noted that these coins have absolutely nothing to do with the bitcoin payments associated with the Mt Gox trustee, except for mere coincidental timing with the trustee’s latest update. Mt Gox creditors do not currently have a set date for the distribution of payment, contrary to rumors or inaccurate reports.
How do you feel about this whale who moved 15000 bitcoins in a week? And the connection with Mt Gox. Comment below and let us know how you feel about the subject.
Images Credits: Shutterstock. Pixabay. Wiki Commons. GFISchannel. OXT
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