The four most famous international exchanges:

Binance INTL	OKX INTL	Gate.io INTL	Huobi INTL
China Line　APP DL	China Line　APP DL	China Line　APP DL	China Line　APP DL

Note: The above exchange logo is the official website registration link, and the text is the APP download link.

“Hey everyone, I just built a new one. Please tell me what you think.” With these innocuous words, one of the most infamous legends in Bitcoin’s early history began. The name of the exchange was Mt.Gox and it would play a key role in Bitcoin’s rise – at least for a while.

Magic and Chaos

Jed McCaleb

Mt.Gox wasn’t the first exchange to launch Bitcoin, but it actually predated it. Jed McCaleb registered the mtgox.com domain in 2007 and ran it under the name “Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange” for many years until reading about Bitcoin in 2010. The programmer was savvy enough to realize that a Bitcoin exchange would make better use of his domain, which had been dormant for years after the original business proved to be a flop.

When McCaleb announced his re-launch of the new platform on the Bitcointalk forum on July 18, 2010, the initial reaction was silence. Many forum users who tried the site were unimpressed, wondering why they should use Mt.Gox for their first exchange when they already had BitcoinMarket.com. McCaleb had a simple answer for this: Mt.Gox is always online, automated, the site is faster, it’s hosted exclusively, and I think the interface is better.” He was proven right.

“Can’t wait to see Bitcoin go to $10”

In the early days Mt.Gox also ran into the problems that affected BitcoinMarket.com-
Paypal. As one of the few fiat platforms that could be easily integrated, PayPal was a necessary evil for an early Bitcoin platform, but it quickly caused more problems than it solved. JedMcCaleb wrote:

“I really hope Bitcoin makes a huge mark on [Paypal]. It irritates me so much that they got a 5.9% return for running an UPDATE statement in the database.”

As McCaleb improved the site, its liquidity grew, and traders flocked to Mt.Gox: “We like trading this way.” It's the best I've ever seen". However, in August 2010, a forum user posed a potential question to McCaleb: 

"What would happen if someone hacked into this site and found a way to send  BTC balance to themselves?" 

At the time McCaleb smiled and replied: 

"Not sure, if it's a bug in Bitcoin, you'll probably have to go through Satoshi to fix it." 

After running the exchange for 8 months, McCaleb published an announcement on March 6, 2011, titled "Mt.Gox is changing owners". The announcement read: 

"I created MtGox on a lark after reading about Bitcoin last summer. It was fun and interesting to do. I still have a lot of confidence that Bitcoin has a bright future. But to make Mt.Gox truly something with potential, it will take more time than I have now. So I've decided to pass the torch to someone who is more capable of taking this site to the next level. ”

“MagicalTux has done so much for the Bitcoin community and in many ways will be a much better person than I am at running this site. Thanks to everyone who supported MtGox. Can’t wait to see BTC go up $10!”

After that, McCaleb left to focus on a cryptocurrency called Ripple. In his place was a new steward of Mt.Gox: MagicalTux. Or Mark Karpeles as we know him today.