Almost a year has passed since the high-profile demise of Japanese digital currency exchange MtGox, in which the future of Bitcoin was called into question as a result of $370 million in customer funds having gone missing due to what was widely regarded as a security issue which allowed Bitcoins to be stolen.
This week, Tokyo Police have stated that according to their investigations, only 7000 Bitcoins, representing 1% of the total, had been lost as a result of cyber attacks from outside the company, whereas 640,000 Bitcoins are suspected by Police to have been lost as a result of unauthorized operation of the exchange’s systems from within the company.
According to a report by Japanese website Yomiuri.co.jp which is the online portal for the Japanese news source Yoimuri Shinbun, the investigation officials within the Tokyo Police department have discovered that there is no evidence of cyber attack with regard to 99% of the Bitcoins which were lost, but there is evidence of cyber attack with regard to approximately 7,000 Bitcoins.
This finding conflicts with the explanation provided by Mt. Gox, which blamed a bug in the Bitcoin system when it filed for bankruptcy on February 28 2014.
The evidence noted by Police during the investigation shows that unauthorized transactions were made by an individual or entity that did not correspond to customer accounts. Currently there is no indication of the entity or individual that is responsible, however former CEO Mark Karpeles has recently explained to PC World via email that he would continue investigating the circumstances in order to establish what actually happened.