Bitcoin history in one chart - Let's peel the onion

June 23, 2011 - Eight days after a hack of the MTGox exchange, Mark Karpeles (CEO of MTGox) sends a transaction with an output of 424,242.42424242 BTC (very geeky) in order to prove the solvency of the company.

Analysis of the transaction graph shows 2 occurrences of a very specific pattern (aka "peeling chains") before and after this transaction.

Visualization (red node is the proof-of-solvency transaction): http://i.imgur.com/DWwOmxS.png

Play time:

• Can you explain why M.Karpeles used this pattern instead of a single transaction ?

• On 28 February 2014, Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection. A few days later, 200,000 "forgotten" bitcoins were found in old wallets. Starting from the proof-of-solvency transaction (https://oxt.me/graph/transaction/3a1b9e330d32fef1ee42f8e86420d2be978bbe0dc5862f17da9027cf9e11f8c4), can you find a 50kBTC output which is part of the forgotten coins ?

Suggested reading: Dump of #mtgox irc channel for 06/23/2011 (search for 424 or MagicalTux)! http://pastebin.com/d7vp06hL (source = https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=21436.msg269194#msg269194)

Explore the bitcoin history with OXT: https://oxt.me

Announcement & useful resources: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1320809.0

Edit: replaced "4 days after..." by "8 days after..."