Whoever has stolen or hidden these Bitcoins are easy to hide their entire life time as they are protected by the anonymity that the Bitcoin gives. The person right now might be roaming in some beach sipping a juice with the bitcoins safely secured in his/her cold storage.
Well, to a certain degree. If the coins were mixed properly and sent to BTC-e and other exchanges a relatively long time before Gox went belly-up, then people may indeed have been lucky and successful in hiding their identity... Oh and if this was Karpeles, he would be sipping a Frappuccino, of course!
There are probably too many people keeping their eye on Karpeles and analyzing his every move for him to realistically cash out that much BTC whilst still going unnoticed.
For me this looks straight and simple.
Jed McCaleb sold Mt Gox to Mark Karpelès on 6 March 2011. The Bitcoins started missing soon afterwards. For me this is clear. Karpelès purchased the exchange, so that he could steal the coins from its users. And he started doing that immediately after he purchased the exchange.
Jed McCaleb sold Mt Gox to Mark Karpelès on 6 March 2011. The Bitcoins started missing soon afterwards. For me this is clear. Karpelès purchased the exchange, so that he could steal the coins from its users. And he started doing that immediately after he purchased the exchange.
According to the chart, there is still a good 3-4 months between the sale to Karpeles and before the coins started to go missing. It does show that McCaleb probably didn't have anything to do with the collapse though.
Also, this was around the same time when Bitcoin was just starting to get noticed by the mainstream. Not sure if it's related or not but it's kinda interesting to note.
EDIT: And I think there was a major code rewrite at around the time it was sold too.
Could it be possible that they forgot about the June 2011 424,242 BTC transfer?
Not only do the lines diverge immediately after the transfer, but if you look at the period right after the July-November gap, the difference between the "expected BTC" and "actual BTC" is roughly 400,000 BTC as well.
Not only do the lines diverge immediately after the transfer, but if you look at the period right after the July-November gap, the difference between the "expected BTC" and "actual BTC" is roughly 400,000 BTC as well.
There was also the hack that happened in June 2011 as well which was what led to the 424,242 BTC transfer in the first place. I wonder if it's related.