The 50 Most Interesting Companies In Bitcoin's History: 1/50
Mt. Gox
The Idea: Allow for easier access to buying and selling bitcoin. McCaleb repurposed a domain he'd bought in 2007 for a Magic: The Gathering card trading site ('Magic: The Gathering Online eXchange') and launched a Bitcoin exchange on it in July 2010. He sold the site to French developer Mark Karpeles in March 2011.
Early Traction: Allowed anyone to deposit USD and buy bitcoin, opening up access to those outside of miners.
Peak Stats: Mt. Gox handled 70-80% of all Bitcoin transactions, and held ~850,000 bitcoin on behalf of users.
Status Today: Failed. Collapsed in February 2014 after revealing that ~744,408 customer BTC and ~100,000 of its own BTC had been stolen through a hack that went undetected for years due to poor security and controls.
Why It Matters:
Mt. Gox's collapse became the defining cautionary tale of the industry and catalyzed the push for both self custody to reduce counterparty exposure, as well as regulated, institutional-grade custody and exchange infrastructure. Jed McCaleb went on to co-found Ripple and later Stellar.