Study: Mt. Gox May Have Lost Just 386 BTC Due to Transaction Malleability
A new report by researchers at ETH Zurich University in Switzerland has concluded that the now-bankrupt Japan-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox may have lost only 386 bitcoins ($203,000) due to issues stemming from transaction malleability. The finding provides new evidence that Mt. Gox's continued claims that issues with the Bitcoin protocol were the primary reason for its insolvency are perhaps misleading or untrue. Released on 26th March, the report was authored by Christian Decker and Professor Roger Wattenhofer, both of the university's Distributed Computing Group (DCG). Overall, the....
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Was a transaction malleability flaw the true cause of over 750,000 BTC belong to Mt. Gox customers going missing? According to a study conducted by Christian Decker and Roger Wattenhofer of ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), transaction malleability accounted for significantly less loss than Mt. Gox declared - as little as 386 bitcoins. ...while MtGox claimed to have lost 850,000 bitcoins due to malleability attacks, we merely observed a total of 302,000 bitcoins ever being involved in malleability attacks. Of these, only 1,811 bitcoins were in attacks before MtGox stopped....
A study by Swiss researchers concludes that transaction malleability attacks could not have accounted for Mt. Gox’s missing millions. Fewer than 400 bitcoins could have been stolen from the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange using so-called transaction malleability attacks, according to A Swiss study, far less than the hundreds of thousands of bitcoins the company reported. The findings cast doubt on the failed exchange’s explanation of how it lost nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of the digital currency when it applied for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo on Feb. 28.
Mark Karpeles pulling a Cassious Coin from behind the photographer's ear. Solid research has proven what many bitcoiners have long suspected; transaction malleability did not play a significant, if any, role in the disappearance of 850,000 BTC from Japanese exchange Mt. Gox. Christian Decker and Roger Wattenhofer of ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, combed through the blockchain to tally each instance of a potential transaction malleability attack in order to figure out exactly how much Bitcoin was put at risk by the alleged attacks. Their research concludes: The transaction malleability problem....
The Bitcoin Network Under Attack. If you are involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem at all, in the last 72 hours you have been exposed to the phrase "transaction malleability." It's what Mt Gox blamed when it enacted a sudden and prolonged halting of all withdrawals, and it's the vehicle for what has been called a "massive and concerted attack" on various bitcoin exchanges. Transaction malleability had also been a known characteristic of the Bitcoin protocol for a while, as pointed out by many in the community when Mt Gox cited it as a security liability. Despite all of this tumult within the....
For the past several days*, the Bitcoin network has been plagued by a so-called "transaction malleability attack." Bitcoin users have experienced a number of annoyances, causing confusion and frustration. And while the transaction malleability issue is well-known and has plagued the Bitcoin network before, to many it is still unclear what it is, why it is a problem, who is causing the attack right now, and what can be done about it. *According to the claimed attacker (see below), the attack is currently paused at the time of writing, but could and probably will be continued at any time.....