<story><title>Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>chevreuil</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a bit new to bitcoins, but is it technically possible for the bitcoins community as a whole to make a blacklist of bitcoins addresses and &amp;quot;ban&amp;quot; the stolen bitcoins ?
Such blacklist would daunt robbers and enforce public trust in bitcoins.</text></item><item><author>deweller</author><text>In November of 2011 Mt. Gox demonstrated control of 500k BTC.&lt;p&gt;I followed the 500,000 BTC for a bit beginning at &lt;a href=&quot;https://blockchain.info/tx/b269bf1b82dae8a61f7f91dbf7a9d807e30963c1ae00ddd95a8faebea6d0a007&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blockchain.info&amp;#x2F;tx&amp;#x2F;b269bf1b82dae8a61f7f91dbf7a9d807e...&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;p&gt;The coins move around and small amounts are sent away, but the majority ends up back in Mt. Gox&amp;#x27;s main (hot) wallet. This repeats a few times until the majority is paid back to the main Mt.Gox address.&lt;p&gt;Here is the transaction where it starts to get interesting:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blockchain.info/tx/478ea915aa3a2e54503c43e1c5659722b42a784412423a05394c83a44affb805&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blockchain.info&amp;#x2F;tx&amp;#x2F;478ea915aa3a2e54503c43e1c5659722b...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s left of the 500,000 (429.9k) is split into roughly half and sent to 2 new address.  And then each of those address splits the coins in half and sends to two new address.&lt;p&gt;The end result is that the 429k was split again and again until the funds are split into many addresses, each of which now contain less than 1,000 BTC each.  I stopped following the transactions there.&lt;p&gt;Why take 429k and split it into many addresses each containing less than 1,000 BTC each?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to see someone trace all of these coins and see if they end up coming together somewhere or show a pattern.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>patio11</author><text>This is not technically speaking impossible, but the Bitcoin community has a visceral hatred for the idea, because it allows off-blockchain-entities to effectively deprive them of the use of their coins.  It also undermines trust in the currency generally, since why accept Bitcoins if there is the possibility that you&amp;#x27;d be paid with black Bitcoins instead of white Bitcoins, when you&amp;#x27;re practically speaking guaranteed that all dollars are green.&lt;p&gt;Also &amp;quot;Take all the coins that went through Silk Road.  Now, floodfill forward.&amp;quot; (probably) colors most of the network black.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>chevreuil</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a bit new to bitcoins, but is it technically possible for the bitcoins community as a whole to make a blacklist of bitcoins addresses and &amp;quot;ban&amp;quot; the stolen bitcoins ?
Such blacklist would daunt robbers and enforce public trust in bitcoins.</text></item><item><author>deweller</author><text>In November of 2011 Mt. Gox demonstrated control of 500k BTC.&lt;p&gt;I followed the 500,000 BTC for a bit beginning at &lt;a href=&quot;https://blockchain.info/tx/b269bf1b82dae8a61f7f91dbf7a9d807e30963c1ae00ddd95a8faebea6d0a007&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blockchain.info&amp;#x2F;tx&amp;#x2F;b269bf1b82dae8a61f7f91dbf7a9d807e...&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;p&gt;The coins move around and small amounts are sent away, but the majority ends up back in Mt. Gox&amp;#x27;s main (hot) wallet. This repeats a few times until the majority is paid back to the main Mt.Gox address.&lt;p&gt;Here is the transaction where it starts to get interesting:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blockchain.info/tx/478ea915aa3a2e54503c43e1c5659722b42a784412423a05394c83a44affb805&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blockchain.info&amp;#x2F;tx&amp;#x2F;478ea915aa3a2e54503c43e1c5659722b...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s left of the 500,000 (429.9k) is split into roughly half and sent to 2 new address.  And then each of those address splits the coins in half and sends to two new address.&lt;p&gt;The end result is that the 429k was split again and again until the funds are split into many addresses, each of which now contain less than 1,000 BTC each.  I stopped following the transactions there.&lt;p&gt;Why take 429k and split it into many addresses each containing less than 1,000 BTC each?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to see someone trace all of these coins and see if they end up coming together somewhere or show a pattern.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>the_watcher</author><text>Well, the supply of BTC is finite, so simply excluding stolen BTC&amp;#x27;s has some additional problems.  May be better than not addressing it, but while BTC provides a mechanism for following them through the transaction chain, it&amp;#x27;s not that simple to ID what addresses contain &amp;quot;stolen&amp;quot; BTC.  What if the thieves are able to launder them through unwitting proxies?  For example, steal a bunch of BTC, sell them on another exchange immediately, and now, how do you blacklist those &amp;quot;stolen&amp;quot; bitcoins without screwing over an innocent bystander?</text></comment>