A single stolen auditor password triggered a minutes-long collapse on the exchange before Mt. Gox rolled back every transaction.
Bitcoin briefly plunged from $17 to $0.01 on Mt. Gox in 2011 after a hacker used a single stolen auditor password to crash the market within minutes. The exchange later reversed every trade, unwinding the episode after the price dislocation. The incident came just days after the full Mt. Gox user database was posted for sale on Pastebin, underscoring how weak exchange security could destabilize early crypto markets.