🚨 The exchange that controlled 70% of Bitcoin started by selling Magic cards… and ended up losing 850,000
$BTC It kicked off as a site for trading Magic: The Gathering cards.
No joke.
In 2010, American programmer Jed McCaleb had a domain called mtgox.com.
The acronym stood for:
Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange.
The original idea flopped.
But after discovering Bitcoin, he decided to repurpose the site to create a marketplace where folks could buy and sell BTC.
A year later, he sold the project to Frenchman Mark Karpelès.
What followed was one of the most incredible stories in the industry.
Mt. Gox grew to become the dominant exchange on the planet.
For years, it was the gateway to the ecosystem for millions of users.
If you bought Bitcoin, it was very likely you ended up using Mt. Gox.
But the success hid problems that nobody saw coming.
In February 2014, the exchange suspended withdrawals and shortly after declared bankruptcy.
The reason:
Approximately 850,000 BTC had vanished.
It was the equivalent of a global bank collapse within the nascent crypto ecosystem.
Trust plummeted.
Prices fell.
And the industry learned a lesson that still holds true:
Not your keys, not your coins.
What’s wild is that it all began with a failed project to trade collectible cards.
The story of Mt. Gox shows that innovation can come from anywhere, but also that growth without proper controls can have historical consequences.
This case is one of the most significant precedents to understand the evolution of Bitcoin, custody, and the regulation of digital markets.
Do you think Mt. Gox's fall was inevitable, or could it have been avoided with better practices and regulation from the start?
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