Mt. Gox hacker sells another 1,300 Bitcoins on the eve of Christmas, still holding 4,100 coins

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged Russian national Aleksey Bilyuchenko with hacking into Mt. Gox in 2011 and stealing approximately 647,000 Bitcoins (worth billions of dollars today). According to recent Arkham on-chain analysis data, wallets linked to him transferred 1,300 Bitcoins (about $114 million) to unknown exchanges within the past week, and these wallets still hold about 4,100 Bitcoins, with a total of 2,300 Bitcoins previously sold. This incident has once again raised concerns about potential money laundering activities related to the historic leak that led to Mt. Gox’s bankruptcy in 2014. 43-year-old Bilyuchenko and his 29-year-old accomplice Aleksandr Verner are alleged to have hacked Mt. Gox servers from September 2011 to May 2014, stealing customer funds and laundering them through controlled exchanges like BTC-e, which they operated jointly with Alexander Vinnik, until the exchange was shut down by authorities in 2017.

The Mt. Gox hack remains one of the biggest scandals in the crypto industry, which once handled 70% of global Bitcoin transactions. The exchange was repeatedly hacked, exposing significant vulnerabilities in early trading platforms. Prosecutors claim that these two individuals used fraudulent contracts with a New York Bitcoin broker to cash out over $6.6 million and transferred the proceeds to overseas accounts. BTC-e became a hub for ransomware, hacking attacks, and drug money. If Bilyuchenko is convicted of money laundering and unlicensed money transmission in California, he faces up to 45 years in prison. There are also charges in New York State court. Verner faces up to 20 years. However, neither has been detained; Bilyuchenko fled to Moscow in 2017. Recently, activity related to Mt. Gox wallets has intensified as creditors of Mt. Gox are expected to receive repayments from recovered assets in 2024-2025. This could flood the market with Bitcoin and increase selling pressure. Multiple on-chain detectives and data tracking platforms are monitoring these wallets. Despite advanced tools, there are still vulnerabilities in crypto traceability, especially since some Bitcoins were laundered through BTC-e years ago, making them difficult to track. Investors remain closely watching Mt. Gox-related wallet activity, as transfers from these wallets could signal larger sell-offs of Bitcoin.