Bitcoin Cold Case: The Tale of the Dormant Wallet With Close to 80,000 BTC From Mt Gox

Celý článek

For the last 11 years, a mysterious wallet associated with the Mt Gox scandal has sat dormant holding close to 80,000 bitcoin worth $3.7 billion today. While the wallet was once the sixth-largest address a few years ago, today it’s the ninth-largest wallet in terms of bitcoin held, and the funds have never been spent since the first deposit on March 1, 2011.

The Mysterious ‘1Feex’ Wallet and 79,957 Bitcoins

On April 1, reports claimed that 6,800 bitcoin had moved from the Mt Gox cold wallet, but later the wallet was identified as F2pool’s cold wallet. The claims led to a lot of speculation and rumors concerning the so-called transfer and even a few reports about the subject from the media, that were later corrected. While the Mt Gox scandal bitcoins held by the trustee are interesting and everyone has been waiting years for these coins to be released, eventually the bitcoins owed to claimants will be distributed, and it’s not likely the transfer will move the price.

The reason for this is that, while there’s a good amount of bitcoins, they will be distributed to multiple holders in all types of fractions and amounts. Some people may sell and others may hold the bitcoin for a longer period of time. However, there’s another wallet that’s a lot more ominous and it too is associated with the Mt Gox exchange and its downfall. The wallet is known as the “1Feex” bitcoin wallet and it currently holds 79,957.21 BTC worth $3.7 billion. The wallet has never sent any bitcoin out of the address and it’s received a great deal of dust transactions since it was created on March 1, 2011.

The stash of 80,000 BTC is well known for being stolen from Mt Gox as the former CEO of the exchange, Mark Karpeles, explained it was a known recipient of stolen BTC. “This 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF address is known as [the] recipient of some 80K BTC stolen from Mt Gox in March 2011,” Karpeles wrote four years ago. While no one knows who owns “1Feex,” the wallet could wake up from dormancy at any time. In fact, two big awakenings took place this year as thousands of stolen BTC moved for the first time in years.

Thousands of Stolen, ‘Sleeping Bitcoins’ Have ‘Awoken’ in 2022

On February 1, 2022, stolen Bitfinex bitcoins were transferred to an unknown wallet and after 23 transactions, the wallet held approximately 94,643.29 BTC. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed a week later that law enforcement seized the cache of 94,643.29 bitcoin from a New York-based couple. Six days ago on March 29, 2022, 11,325 bitcoin moving from unknown wallets created in 2014, moved to a great number of different addresses. The funds, worth $540 million at the time of transfer, are suspected to be associated with the Cryptsy theft.

The “1Feex” bitcoin wallet was also discussed in mid-July 2020 amid the Kleiman v. Wright trial. That month it was reported that Craig Wright, the man who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, allegedly had his legal team send letters about the “1Feex” bitcoin wallet. On June 12, 2020, the former CEO of Mt Gox, Mark Karpeles, tweeted about the letter. Since this time, discussions concerning the “1Feex” bitcoin wallet fizzled out of the limelight. Seven days later, after the discussions on Twitter, the bitcoin security specialists Wizsec published a comprehensive blog post concerning the “1Feex” bitcoin wallet.

While less than the recent Bitfinex hack bitcoin, the stolen BTC in the “1Feex” bitcoin wallet is a lot larger than the recent Cryptsy theft bitcoin spend. The infamous “1Feex” bitcoin wallet has been a mystery for years, and the funds inside are now considered so-called ‘sleeping bitcoins.’ If these bitcoins do move, they will surely be caught by onchain parsers and blockchain forensics teams, and whoever moves them will be suspected of being involved with the Mt Gox breach. For now, the 79,957.21 BTC remains idle in the wallet after sitting for well over 11 years, and to this day, not a single satoshi has ever been sent out of it.

What do you think about the mysterious “1Feex” bitcoin wallet? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.