Mt. Gox Ex-CEO Floats Hard Fork to Recover 80K Hacked BTC

Mt. Gox's former CEO Mark Karpeles has put forward a hard fork proposal that would allow the recovery of 79,956 Bitcoin — currently valued at more than $5.2 billion — stolen from the defunct exchange over a decade ago. Karpeles published the proposal on GitHub on Friday, requesting a new consensus rule to transfer the long-dormant coins to a recovery address without needing the original private key.

What Is the Mt. Gox Hard Fork Proposal?

The proposal introduces a consensus rule that would make a previously invalid transaction valid, enabling the 79,956 BTC sitting in a single well-known wallet to be redirected to a recovery address. Karpeles acknowledged the measure constitutes a hard fork, meaning every node would need to upgrade before the activation height.

"These coins have not moved in over 15 years. They are among the most well-known and publicly tracked UTXOs in Bitcoin's history," Karpeles wrote. He stressed he was not trying to disguise the nature of the change.

Mt. Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, who is already overseeing creditor distributions, has the legal framework in place to return the coins to rightful owners if recovery were possible. However, Kobayashi has declined to pursue on-chain recovery, citing uncertainty over whether such a consensus change would ever be adopted.

The trustee won't act without certainty, and the community can't evaluate the idea without a concrete proposal. This patch breaks that deadlock.

— Mark Karpeles, Former CEO of Mt. Gox

Bitcoin Community Pushes Back Hard

The proposal encountered fierce resistance on the Bitcointalk forum, where users argued it would undermine Bitcoin's foundational principles of irreversibility and immutability. Critics warned that approving such a mechanism would open the door to consensus changes every time a major hack occurs.

"Each time a hack incident happens, someone will call for another new consensus rule to recover stolen funds. This will destroy the bitcoin concept in full," wrote forum member coupable, who has been active on Bitcointalk since 2015.

Another user, PrivacyG, argued Bitcoin must remain independent from law enforcement decisions in any jurisdiction. Karpeles conceded the immutability argument is the strongest case against his proposal but maintained the Mt. Gox situation is unique — both law enforcement and community consensus confirm the wallet holds stolen funds.

Creditors Voice Support for Recovery

Not everyone opposed the idea. Some individuals who claim to have lost funds in the Mt. Gox collapse voiced support for the hard fork. "If those coins ever move by whatever mechanism, then I am going to want my share of them back," said a creditor identified as Samson.

Karpeles stated the proposal was not designed to bypass Bitcoin's development process but rather to start a meaningful conversation. After 12 years of bankruptcy proceedings, he called it "probably the last sore point on this whole case."

How Did Mt. Gox Collapse?

Mt. Gox operated from 2010 to 2014 as the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, processing roughly 70% of all Bitcoin transactions globally. Its scale made it a prime target for hackers, who exploited security vulnerabilities starting in 2011 to siphon thousands of Bitcoin over years without detection.

On February 24, 2014, an alleged leaked document revealed the company was insolvent after losing 744,408 Bitcoin in a long-undetected theft. Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo on February 28, 2014 — exactly 12 years ago today — disclosing approximately $65 million in liabilities after losing 750,000 customer Bitcoin and 100,000 of its own, worth nearly half a billion dollars at the time.

What This Means Going Forward

The chances of this hard fork gaining network-wide adoption remain slim, given the community's strong commitment to Bitcoin's immutability. However, the proposal has achieved one stated goal: sparking a concrete discussion about whether exceptional circumstances — such as the largest exchange hack in Bitcoin history — warrant exceptional measures. The debate over Mt. Gox's lost 79,956 BTC is far from over.