Have you ever put on an old coat and found a crumpled $20 note in the pocket? Well, that’s what just happened to bankrupt former Bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox. Only instead of $20 dollars, they found around 200,000 lost Bitcoins.
According to Mt.Gox CEO Mark Karpeles, the hidden digital currency was overlooked because it was hidden in an old-format digital wallet which was used in the past but was believe to be empty. The impressive hidden cache was stored prior to June 2011 and discovered earlier this month.
Unfortunately, although Mt.Gox was once the biggest Bitcoin exchange on the planet, the company filed for bankruptcy in February after reporting a massive security breach and the theft of thousands of Bitcoins. While 200,000 Bitcoins amount to a staggering amount of money ($116 million by current exchange rates), this is not enough to repair the damage done to the company and its users.
In total hackers are estimated to have stolen around 750,000 Bitcoins from Mt.Gox customers, as well as 100,000 of the company’s own reserve.