Mt. Gox, the Tokyo bitcoin exchange that collapsed and filed for bankruptcy last month, said it had found 200,000 bitcoins that were held in a digital storage file.
Mt. Gox’s former chief executive, Mark Karpeles, issued a statement on the company’s website saying that after it filed for bankruptcy, it began researching files that were used before June 2011. That is when the company discovered the 200,000 bitcoins, which represent about 24 percent of the coins that went missing when the site failed.
Last month, Mt. Gox said it had lost 750,000 of its customers’ bitcoin holdings and more than 100,000 of its own coins, or more than $450 million worth. Based on today’s rates, the found coins are worth about $114 million.
Plaintiffs have filed a class-action lawsuit, seeking a temporary injunction to keep Karpeles or his company from moving any money outside the United States. They also want a full accounting of any assets Mt. Gox has left. Mt. Gox said it reported the discovery of the coins to the Bankruptcy Court on March 10, and that it moved them to an offline site.