Not your keys − not your crypto

🔵 June 2011. The Mt. Gox exchange was hacked. Due to manipulation of the BTC price, it briefly dropped to ~$0.01.

🔵 American gamer Kevin Day managed to buy 260,000 BTC. He managed to withdraw 643 BTC before the exchange halted trading.

🔵 Next, the key point: Mt. Gox canceled all transactions made during the hack, arguing it was a technical error and an invalid price. Kevin's balance on the exchange was simply reset to zero.

🔵 This was not an ordinary market, but a failure due to stolen accounts and sales at $0.01. Mt. Gox legally deemed the transactions invalid.

🔵 Kevin did not file a lawsuit, although he could have formally tried. The 643 BTC he withdrew remained with him forever.

🔵 If valued at today’s prices, those 260,000 BTC would be worth about $23 billion today.

🔵 But in fact, it was an attempt to profit in a completely broken system, not a fair purchase at the bottom.

The lesson is the same as it was 14 years ago: not your keys, not your coins.