Mark Karpelès thought he had a reasonable ask.

The former CEO of defunct exchange MtGox, operating under his GitHub handle MagicalTux, submitted a pull request to Bitcoin Core over the weekend proposing a hard fork (a fundamental change in code that splits the blockchain) that would let 79,956 BTC be redirected from the address they’ve been sitting in since 2011.

At current prices, that’s roughly $5 billion in bitcoin that hasn’t moved in 15 years.

The proposal was narrow, with just under 60 lines of code. A single consensus rule change that would substitute one public key hash for another when validating transactions from the theft address, allowing the MtGox trustee to spend the coins and route them into Japan’s existing court-supervised rehabilitation process.

Read more: Mt Gox: The History of a Failed Bitcoin Exchange

The activation height was set to infinity, meaning nothing would happen unless the community explicitly agreed to turn it on.

It lasted about 17 hours.

The forum was auto-closed even before a discussion took place, with bitcoiners suggesting that Karpelès submitted a pull request directly when he should’ve first discussed the changes on the Bitcoin development list. Some of them said that Karpelès should first propose this as an official Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP).

The people it was supposed to help rejected it, too. Several MtGox creditors said publicly on X that they didn’t want Bitcoin’s rules rewritten on their behalf. The network’s guarantee that private keys equal ownership matters more to them than getting their coins back.

Code is the law

Karpelès had anticipated the objections and listed them himself in the proposal.

The theft is unambiguous, and the coins haven’t moved in 15 years. A legal framework to distribute them already exists. The scope targets one address. Every argument for exceptionalism was there.

Once Bitcoin redirects coins for any reason, the question stops being whether it can and starts being when it will do it again.

Bitfinex victims, DeFi hack victims, and anyone who lost coins to a documented theft could cite this as precedent and seek the same remedy for their incidents. The line between one justified exception and a general mechanism is exactly the kind of subjective boundary Bitcoin was built to avoid.

This is not to say a change in code didn’t happen before.

Previous emergency interventions, such as the 2010 value overflow bug or the 2013 chain split, involved technical failures that threatened the network itself. This was different. The network was working exactly as designed. The proposal was asking it to work differently for one group of people, however sympathetic their case.

The pull request is now closed. $5 billion in bitcoin remains frozen at the same address it’s been at since 2011. And the creditors who might have benefited chose the principal over the payout.

Ultimately, Bitcoin’s fundamental principle of “code is the law” prevailed.

Six Polymarket accounts earned roughly $1.2 million after correctly betting that the U.S. would strike Iran on Feb. 28, according to blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps.

In a post on X, Bubblemaps said most of the wallets were funded within 24 hours of the attack and bought “Yes” shares in the “U.S. strikes Iran by February 28, 2026?” market just hours before explosions were reported in Tehran and other cities.The accounts had no activity beyond these predictions.

The strikes followed a televised address by U.S. President Donald Trump announcing what he called “major combat operations,” targeting the country’s missile, naval, and nuclear infrastructure. The attack saw bitcoin’s price drop while oil futures on Hyperliquid rose.

One Polymarket account Bubblemaps pointed to purchased more than 560,000 “Yes” shares at about 10.8 cents each, a position that paid out near $560,000 after the market resolved at $1. Another account bought nearly 150,000 shares at 20 cents, turning a six-figure profit. All six profiles were created in February, according to Polymarket data.

Trading volume on the Feb. 28 contract reached nearly $90 million, part of more than $529 million wagered across related strike-date markets since December.

Bubblemaps published a visual map showing the six wallets clustered together and funded through similar paths.

The trades land as U.S. regulators weigh how to police insider activity on prediction markets. This week, rival platform Kalshi said it suspended and fined two users for insider trading, including a visual effects editor for MrBeast’s “Beast Games” who allegedly traded on knowledge of show outcomes.

Kalshi, which is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a designated contract market, said it has investigated about 200 cases and has more than a dozen active probes.

The CFTC issued an advisory noting the enforcement actions and warned that insider trading on event contracts may violate U.S. law. Chairman Mike Selig called exchanges the “first line of defense.” Kalshi banned the employee for two years and fined him more than $20,000. In a separate case, a political candidate was penalized for betting on his own race.

More recently, Polymarket traders have appeared to insider trade a market on insider trading itself. Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT last week teased he would publish the findings of an investigation into a crypto platform, which ended up being Axiom, whose employees he believed used non-public information to trade.

Teasing the investigation was coming, however, led to the creation of a Polymarket contract on which company would be named. Some clearly knew the answer on which company was under investigation, with Lookonchain identifying 12 wallets that heavily bet on Axiom ahead of the reveal.

Some observers noted that even if Iran controlled 5% of global hashrate, the network would continue functioning without disruption.

Bitcoin mining in Iran is back in the spotlight after a viral X post on February 27 claimed the country runs a $1 billion operation that could be wiped out.

The debate has split crypto observers, with some warning of a temporary hashrate shock and others dismissing the claims as exaggerated fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD).

Iran’s Mining Footprint and the Strike Scenario

The discussion began when independent analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera posted that Iran mines Bitcoin at a theoretical cost of $1,320 per BTC using heavily subsidized electricity and then selling it at the current price near $68,000 to extract what he described as a 50x gross margin.

He alleged that around 700,000 mining rigs consume roughly 2,000 megawatts daily, much of it tied to operations linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.

Perera tied the argument to sanctions, saying Bitcoin allows Iran to convert restricted energy resources into liquid capital beyond the reach of SWIFT prohibitions.

A January 16 report by Chainalysis found that Iran’s total crypto activity exceeded $7.78 billion in 2025. Furthermore, the report said addresses linked to IRGC facilitation networks received more than $3 billion last year, up from just over $2 billion in 2024, and that activity often spiked during military or political crises.

Nonetheless, critics quickly challenged the mining cost assumptions, with analyst Dasha calling the $1,320 figure “100% fake news,” arguing it relies on household electricity rates that cannot be achieved in practice due to blackouts and shortages.

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Hashrate Shocks Are Not New

The objections did not stop there, as miner ZynxBTC dismissed the concern entirely:

“Even if Iran controlled 5% of global hashrate (it doesn’t), and it went offline, the network would continue functioning normally.”

Recent U.S. events support that argument. Earlier in the year, the network continued operating even after a severe winter storm forced major Texas miners offline, pushing the hashrate down from 1.133 ZH/s to 690 EH/s in just a couple of days.

However, Perera argued that grid failure differs from voluntary shutdown. According to his analysis, with tensions brewing in the Middle East, a 7-to-10-day air campaign targeting Iranian military infrastructure would likely collapse electricity generation by an estimated 30% to 50%.

He insisted that mining rigs require continuous power, and even brief outages could destroy active operations. As such, he postulated that a strike on Iran’s already fragile grid could see the country’s estimated 2% to 5% share of the global hashrate drop to zero within days, triggering a difficulty adjustment that would extend block times and temporarily spike transaction fees. As CryptoPotato reported, the US and Israel have already launched strikes on Iran earlier today.

Still, others argued that the Bitcoin network has withstood even larger shocks, with researcher Furkan Yildirim noting that China removed more than half of the global hashrate in 2021, yet the network soon adjusted as miners relocated.

“An Iranian grid failure would be a rounding error by comparison,” he tweeted.

A group of 11 US senators has asked federal authorities to investigate whether crypto exchange Binance is complying with US sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements, citing recent reports.

In a letter on Friday to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Pamela Bondi, the lawmakers urged a “prompt, comprehensive review” of the exchange’s compliance controls and its adherence to settlement agreements reached in 2023.

The senators pointed to allegations that approximately $1.7 billion in digital assets flowed through Binance to Iranian entities linked to terrorism, including groups connected to the Houthis and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Investigators also reportedly identified more than 1,500 accounts accessed by users in Iran and potential activity connected to Russian sanctions evasion.

According to the letter, some Binance compliance staff who uncovered suspicious transactions were later dismissed, and law enforcement agencies said the exchange had become less cooperative in providing customer information.

Related: Binance stablecoin reserves have sunk 19% since November

Senators warn Binance products could enable sanctions evasion

Senators Chris Van Hollen and Ruben Gallego, joined by Angela D. Alsobrooks, Andy Kim, Raphael Warnock, Tina Smith, Catherine Cortez Masto, Mark R. Warner, Elizabeth Warren, Jack Reed and Lisa Blunt Rochester, signed the letter.

They also raised concerns about newer products, including payment cards launched in parts of the former Soviet Union and partnerships tied to stablecoin initiatives, which they warned could facilitate sanctions evasion.

The senators asked the agencies to report by March 13 on any steps taken to examine the exchange’s conduct.

On Tuesday, Senator Richard Blumenthal, ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, also launched a congressional inquiry into Binance. He sent a letter to Binance CEO Richard Teng requesting documents and internal records related to the exchange’s sanctions controls.

Related: Binance confirms employee targeted as three arrested in France break-in

Binance denies Iran-linked transaction claims

In a statement to Cointelegraph this week, Binance rejected allegations that its platform facilitated illicit transactions, saying it identified and reported suspicious activity to authorities and does not allow Iranian users. A company spokesperson said recent media coverage misrepresented the exchange’s operations.

Last week, the exchange also disputed a report claiming it processed more than $1 billion in Iran-linked transfers and denied dismissing investigators over the issue.

Teng has also criticized a Wall Street Journal report alleging $1.7 billion in Iran-related activity, calling it defamatory and seeking a retraction.

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