Update: Mt. Gox 6,800 BTC not linked with ex-CEO‘s plans to redistribute $6B

A recent whale alert misassociated an F2pool cold wallet with Bitcoin (BTC) exchange Mt. Gox, which transferred 6,800 BTC to an unknown wallet just days after former CEO Mark Karpeles revealed plans to redistribute BTC worth $6 billion to its creditors. 

Mt. Gox was a Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange that shut down in February 2014, after a hack that compromised 850,000 BTC. In a recent interview, Karpeles disclosed that the exchange had roughly 200,000 BTC in possession during the company’s closure, out of which the trustee sold roughly 50,000 BTC for $600 million in the past.

According to Karpeles, the remaining 150,000 BTC currently held by Mt. Gox has grown in value over the years — and is worth over $6 billion. After this revelation, the former CEO confirmed plans to redistribute the money and settle scores with the creditors.

6,800 #BTC (318,980,017 USD) transferred from #MtGox Cold Wallet to unknown wallethttps://t.co/sYczH1c8ho

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 1, 2022

Five days after Karpeles’ interview, Crypto Twitter’s @whale-alert highlighted that 6,800 BTC, worth nearly $319 million, was transferred to an unknown wallet from a cold wallet belonging to the now-defunct Mt. Gox exchange. Contradicting the whale alert, F2pool founder Chun Wang reportedly confirmed that the wallet address had the wrong marking and that the address was associated with the early miners of F2pool.

Whale Alert said 6,800 BTC (318,980,017 USD) transferred from MtGox Cold Wallet to unknown wallet. However, F2pool founder said it the marking is wrong, it is not the wallet address of Mtgox, but the address associated with the early miners of f2pool. https://t.co/gW9ybuyS1m

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) April 2, 2022

The below screenshot shows the details about the 6,800 BTC transfer between F2pool‘s Mtgox wallet and an unknown wallet, as shown in WhaleAlert.

Despite being non-operational for over eight years, the Mt. Gox team has previously shared a rehabilitation plan to compensate creditors. As pointed out by @thisisbullish, the alleged wallet address linked to Mt. Gox has not recorded any outflows.

This is the Gox account I have, no movement out.

… was ref an April Fools?https://t.co/gNRclBGMMC

— This is Bullish (@thisisbullish) April 1, 2022

Disclaimer: A previous version of the story stated that 6,800 BTC were transferred from a cold wallet linked to Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. However, F2pool founder Chun Wang later denied the claims by clarifying that the wallet in question belonged to  F2pool miners and was wrongly marked as Mt. Gox.

Related: Rare Bears Discord phishing attack nabs $800K in NFTs

While crypto businesses continue to adopt various security measures to fend off attacks, bad actors have kept up with the change to lure in unwary investors.

Warning @BearsRare
Discord has unfortunately been compromised. Please DO NOT click any links, connect your wallet and block all incoming DMs in our discord. Our team are working on the situation as we speak

— Rare Bears (@BearsRare) March 17, 2022

On March 18, the recently launched nonfungible token (NFT) project “Rare Bears” confirmed a successful phishing attack — resulting in a loss of nearly $800,000 in NFTs.

As Cointelegraph reported, the hacker was able to compromise a moderator’s account on Discord and posted phishing links that ultimately drained user wallets. The Rare Bears team was eventually able to remove the compromised account and secure the server from further attacks.