Mt. Gox Lost 850,000 Bitcoin. Coinbase Stayed Open.

Business Onion · 2:58

In February 2014 Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, shut down with about 850,000 bitcoin missing by its own count. In a San Francisco apartment, a startup called Coinbase stayed open. This is Part 1 of THE COINBASE STORY — how Brian Armstrong's bet on being the "front door" to crypto started with a $30,000 legal letter, a bank that almost said no, and a partnership that ended by email two days before his co-applicant's flight. Numbers & sources: ~850,000 BTC is Mt. Gox's own figure from its 28 Feb 2014 Tokyo filing (about 750,000 customers' + 100,000 its own; roughly 200,000 were later found). The $30,000 legal letter and the ~$600,000 Coinbase had raised come from Brian Armstrong's account on the David Senra podcast (March 2026). The ~$86bn listing-day value is the 14 Apr 2021 close ($328.28) on a fully diluted basis, per CNBC. Coinbase's cold-storage practice is from its own blog, 9 Oct 2012. Some scenes are cinematic reconstructions of documented events. All quotes, dates, and figures are verified.