It's quite plausible to assume one of them or both did steal it though. It's not very likely that somebody would just give 4bn in bitcoins to a stranger to keep for a while.
Exactly, someone sold a huge amount of Bitcoins. I.e., this was the first time it was hacked by someone stupid enough to call enough attention to his crime to have most of what he stole taken back from him. What do you want to bet someone smarter got in there first, and is maybe still in there? There are subtler ways to steal money than grabbing a huge amount all in one chunk and trying to cash out.
The stolen user hasn't reported until now, it seems. From one of the comments:
"It was definitely all our bitcoins that mtgox had in one account! I remember a few days before, people saying that some big bitcoin movements on bitcoin monitor were from mtgox, and the quantity being moved was around 400 000 to 500 000 bitcoins. No single user lost that quantity, it was our coins, from all of us!"
I wonder if this is another attempt at hacking an account containing bitcoins? Last time the thieves made out with close to 50k BTC if I recall correctly.
Nothing in that Google results page contradicts what I have said.
In cases where bitcoins have been stolen it is because the person failed to secure their wallet, used an insecure wallet (such as brain coins), or foolishly entrusted their wallet to an untrustworthy third party (such as MtGox).
That's a really good point. Who says that there really was anyone with that many bitcoins in their account? Maybe someone just hacked the database, put 500,000 btc into an account, and then sold them on the market? We know the user database was dumped, so why shouldn't we think that someone edited the account balances too?
Back in 2012 someone stole worth of $1M bitcoins in today's prices from project I had. Do you think you can help me find who did it? Since if we could - there is certainly a case and enough to pay lawyers and for beefy server and whatever else.
As a contingency, to plan for his possible arrest/death/etc, he signed a NLOCKTIME transaction that would automatically destroy these 1000 BTC in a week if no action is taken.
His handle "rekcahxfb" spells "bfxhacker" in reverse. No plans yet on what he will do with the remaining 118 500 BTC.
> Some of the stolen Bitcoin successfully laundered last year has been traced to a wallet known to be used by Russian-linked criminal groups. Elliptic says this could point to the involvement of a broker or other intermediary with a link to Russia.
IMO, the most compelling story is that the thief is an attacker who had previously gained access, saw the news, and acted quickly to grab what they could. Security was not exactly a priority for these people.
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