Ex-Mt. Gox CEO Proposes Bitcoin Hard Fork to Recover 79,956 BTC Worth $5.2 Billion

Mark Karpelès, former CEO of Mt. Gox, has proposed a Bitcoin hard fork to recover about 79,956 BTC tied to the exchange's 2011 breach, valued near $5.2 billion at current prices, Odaily Planet Daily reports. The plan targets a wallet linked to the hack that received nearly 80,000 BTC and has remained untouched for over 15 years; under current Bitcoin rules only the private key holder can move the coins, and the proposal would allow unspent outputs at a Mt. Gox recovery address to be controlled by signatures from that address so the funds enter the existing court-supervised creditor distribution. Karpelès described it as a discussion starting point with changes limited to a single address and activation at a specified future block height, noting it requires a coordinated network upgrade and that lack of support could risk chain fragmentation; the roughly 80,000 BTC are not currently available for distribution and are not controlled by the bankruptcy trustee.