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That doesn't make sense. Due to the nature of bitcoin we might actually be able to know where the coins went. what do you mean by nature of Bitcoin? if someone steals yoir wallet, then due to the nature of your physical wallet we will never 100% be certain where it went. Due to the nature of Bitcoin there is a trace left in the blockchain.

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People keep saying that, and one would think that if it were that simple, and enough people lost money/BTC on the MtGox debacle, then someone would have gone hunting for it, and found it.

I have read no report, so if it hasn't happened yet, why should I believe it will happen?

It is that simple once you know all of MtGox addresses and transactions. But I doubt you will ever get that information, I even tend to doubt MtGox that MtGox has this information itself.

No it isn't that simple, because a 1BTC on a MTGox account isn't the same thing as 1BTC on the blockchain, if it were then Gox wouldn't have collapsed the way it did.

MtGox internals don't matter for tracing the lost coins. You need to know all addresses owned by MtGox, then you also know all the coins deposited to MtGox, and you need the list of legitimate withdraws. Then you can just look what happened to the coins not legitimately withdrawn.

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