Ex-Mt. Gox CEO's $5B Bitcoin Recovery Plan: Code Fork Proposal Meets Swift Rejection

Mark Karpelès, the former CEO of the defunct Mt. Gox exchange, recently proposed a radical solution to recover approximately $5 billion in stolen Bitcoin (BTC). His plan involved a controversial hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain to effectively reverse the historic 2014 hack. The proposal suggested rewriting Bitcoin's core code to move the stolen funds to a new address, allowing for their return to the original creditors. However, the idea was met with immediate and widespread criticism from the Bitcoin developer community and network participants. Experts and core developers swiftly dismissed the plan, emphasizing Bitcoin's immutability and the dangerous precedent such a code rewrite would set for network security and trust. The quick shutdown underscores the foundational principle that the Bitcoin blockchain is immutable and not subject to alteration, even for recovery of significant lost assets.