2/6 - The case: Mr. Wu had deposited 2,675 Bitcoin on the FXBTC exchange. When China's 2017 crackdown forced Bitcoin exchanges to close, FXBTC shut down in 2018 and Wu's coins went with it. He sued for their return, as reported at

https://cryptobriefing.com/bitcoin…

3/6 - The venue mattered: the Hangzhou Internet Court, created in 2017 to hear disputes entirely online. On July 18, 2019 it ruled Bitcoin 'has value, is scarce and disposable,' the tests for property under Chinese law. Verdict: virtual property, legally…

4/6 - Then the twist: Wu lost anyway. He couldn't produce enough evidence tying him to the FXBTC account that held the coins, so the court rejected his specific claim while cementing the general principle. He walked away with a precedent instead of his Bitcoin.

5/6 - The People's Bank of China moved fast to fence in the ruling: 'Bitcoin is virtual property, but it's not fiat money.' Translation: courts will protect your coins, but the state still won't let you trade them. Both positions were now officially true…

6/6 - That tension never resolved. Even after the sweeping 2021 ban on mining and trading, Chinese courts kept affirming citizens' property rights in Bitcoin they already held. You couldn't buy it, sell it, or mine it, but if someone took yours, the law was…

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July 18, 2010 (16 years ago)

Mt. Gox Opens: "I just put up a new bitcoin exchange."

Built in weeks on a card-game domain, sold eight months later. The exchange McCaleb handed off handled 70% of global Bitcoin trading before losing 850,000 BTC. Brief thread...…

2/8 - The acronym: MTGOX stood for Magic: The Gathering Online eXchange. Jed McCaleb registered the domain in January 2007 to build a card-trading site. That project never shipped. The domain sat dormant for three years.

3/8 - McCaleb wasn't a random hobbyist. Before Bitcoin, he created eDonkey2000, one of the largest peer-to-peer file-sharing networks in history. At its peak, eDonkey had over 4 million active users. The RIAA eventually sued, and MetaMachine paid $30 million…

4/8 - McCaleb discovered Bitcoin through the Slashdot article in June 2010. Within weeks he repurposed http://mtgox.com into a Bitcoin exchange. His entire launch announcement on Bitcointalk: "I just put up a new bitcoin exchange. Please let me know what…

5/8 - Before Gox, Bitcoin trading was informal. Buyers and sellers haggled in forum threads, or used Bitcoin Market, launched in March 2010 by dwdollar, which had no real order book. Gox introduced automated matching: a live bid/ask spread, real volume data…

7/8 - McCaleb sold to French developer Mark Karpeles in early 2011. His stated reason: the exchange needed "someone better able to take it to the next level." He didn't want the compliance burden that came with running a money-transmitting business.

8/8 - McCaleb walked away. The 850,000 BTC that vanished in 2014 were Karpeles's problem, not his. McCaleb went on to co-found Ripple, then Stellar. The dormant card-game domain he recycled became the most consequential address in Bitcoin's first decade.

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Why trust a custodian with your sats? Edgar Borja (@k1elsalvador) breaks down K1's self-custody Bitcoin ATM, on-chain and Lightning buying, and Bitcoin in Bolivia.

Edgar walks through K1's new update, buying Bitcoin on the Lightning Network and on-chain…

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