‘Is Mt. Gox under attack?’ — drama hits repayments

This is yet another embarrassment for those who managed the Mt. Gox bankruptcy. One Reddit user said that it was feared that it was karma to criticize how incompetent the entire operation was.

It’s been a terrible 10 years for early Bitcoin users who lost everything in the Mt. Gox attack and had 850,000 BTC stolen right before their eyes.

After seemingly endless delays and disappointments, there is finally a glimmer of hope that they will soon receive some compensation from the imploding exchange.

But as if the creditors’ suffering wasn’t enough, fears of a new attack emerged this week, with some receiving dozens of emails claiming that malicious actors had logged into their accounts.

While efforts were initiated to deliver the recovered 141,000 BTC to the victims, it is thought that an opportunistic individual tried to steal cryptocurrencies that did not belong to them.

After everything they’ve been through, this is just rubbing salt in the wounds of those who have had to spend money for ten years.

“I got 15 notifications for account login. Now I can’t log in. Is Mtgox under attack???” one user wrote on Reddit.

They later expressed relief that the online system did not allow visitors to change where payments were sent.

It turns out @ovkovk wasn’t alone; others flocked to the social network to say the same thing had happened to them.

“I think an attacker has a record of all (or a bunch of) gox emails and is trying to brute force their way in. It’s happened before,” @Joohansson replied.

On the plus side, their attempts failed despite the mystery person claiming to be logged into the emails, due to a quirk in the website’s email system.

“The problem with their system is that they send the “you’re logged in” email BEFORE you enter the 2FA code, so it’s a bit misleading.”

@Joohansson

One user tested this theory by trying to log into his account using a fake password and, as he predicted, he received an email claiming that a login had been performed.

It’s yet another embarrassment for those who managed the Mt. Gox bankruptcy. One Reddit user said that’s what they fear, saying it’s karma to criticize how incompetent the entire operation is.

But it also presents a huge problem when it comes to bankruptcy proceedings, as information about customers often becomes publicly available. Such information can then be used by fraudsters to launch phishing attacks.

Mt. Gox’s website was suddenly shut down for maintenance after news of the login attempts emerged, but as one creditor noted, there was nothing to worry about because the crypto in its possession had already been sent to custodians.

Who sells?

For months now, the prospect of 141,000 BTC quickly entering the market has been casting a dark cloud over Bitcoin’s performance, with concerns that it could lead to extraordinary selling pressure.

However, in recent days, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has managed to recover, especially after the German government avoided a threat to sell 50,000 BTC seized from a criminal organization.

Two weeks ago, a poll was conducted to ask members of r/mtgoxinsolvency if they planned to sell their Bitcoin after receiving it. While the amount of BTC offered as compensation is much less than what their balance would have been at the time of the attack, it would still represent a large cash windfall.

Of the 467 people who responded, a full 260, or 55%, vowed not to sell a single asset. Meanwhile, 14.5% said they planned to sell up to 25% of their assets. Only 18.8% said they planned to sell everything.

In some ways, these numbers aren’t surprising in the least. BTC was worth around $600 in February 2014 at the time of the Mt. Gox hack, meaning all of these creditors were among the cryptocurrency’s earliest adopters. Fast forward to now, and Bitcoin has surged a jaw-dropping 10,733%.

Those who believed in Bitcoin back then are incredibly likely to believe in Bitcoin now, even if they got their fingers burned.

Still, there’s little doubt that they’ll be happy to see the back of Mt. Gox and move on with their lives. And those who plan to HODL will likely never trust an exchange again.