According to Odaily Odaily, Mark Karpelès, former CEO of the now-defunct exchange Mt. Gox, recently proposed a Bitcoin hard fork scheme, suggesting that approximately 79,956 BTC stolen in the 2011 hack be recovered by modifying the consensus rules. These BTC are worth approximately $5.2 billion at current prices.
The proposal targets a wallet address associated with the 2011 Mt. Gox hack, which received nearly 80,000 bitcoins after the attack and has remained untouched for over 15 years. Under current Bitcoin rules, these funds can only be transferred if the corresponding private key is held.
According to the proposal, the new rules would allow the unspent outputs in an Mt. Gox recovery address to be controlled via a signature, thereby bringing the funds into the existing judicial oversight and restitution process to repay Mt. Gox creditors.
Karpelès stated that this proposal is merely a starting point for discussion, aiming to limit rule changes to a single address and activate it at a specific future block height. However, the proposal also acknowledges that this solution requires a coordinated upgrade across the entire network, and if some community members refuse to support it, it could lead to the risk of a blockchain split.
It is important to note that these approximately 80,000 BTC are not currently part of the assets allocated to Mt. Gox creditors, nor are they controlled by the bankruptcy trustee.
