Mark Karpelès, the former CEO of the now defunct Mt. Gox exchange, is urging the Bitcoin community to consider a network hard fork to retrieve 80,000 Bitcoin linked to the platform’s hack.
The proposal was submitted to the GitHub repository as a formal pull request. In it, there was a consensus that proposed a method of recovering the 79,956 BTC that were stolen during the 2011 breach of Mt. Gox.
Mark Karpelès, CEO Mt.Gox Exchange, Source: Reuters
The stolen token was moved to a single address after the hackers accessed the exchange in 2011. From that time till now, the address has remained inactive, and the private key is believed to be controlled by the attacker. Because no one involved in the rehabilitation process has access to the key, the funds have remained out of reach.
Under the new hard fork proposal, there is a new consensus rule that would allow those specific Bitcoins to be spent using a signature from an official recovery address instead of the attacker’s key. The change would apply only to that one wallet and would not affect other Bitcoin transactions. For it to happen, there needs to be broad agreement across the network, and it would only take place at a future block height if approved.
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The Hard Fork Proposal That Could Redefine Bitcoin’s Rules
The Mt. Gox exchange has proposed a hard fork. It basically means all nodes on the Bitcoin network would need to upgrade to accept the new rule. And without the full coordination and acceptance of this rule, the network faces a risk of a chain split, where it divides into two versions operating under different rules.
Many supporters argue that this case is unique. They point to the clear record of theft, the long period of inactivity, and the existence of a Japanese court-supervised rehabilitation process, which already helps distribute recovered funds to creditors.
Critics, on the other hand, warn that Bitcoin’s consensus rules to redirect some funds could weaken its core principle of immutability. They argue that once the door is opened for one exception, it may be difficult to draw the line in other future cases.
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