Wayback machine (far from conclusive) has this: * 2007: A landing page saying it's coming soon * 2009: A blog (about Magic?), with nothing about trading

Wayback machine (far from conclusive) has this: * 2007: A landing page saying it's coming soon * 2009: A blog (about Magic?), with nothing about trading * 2011: Bitcoins Source: http://web.archive.org/web/*/mtgox.com http://web.archive.org/web/*/mtgox.com Seems to be the domain was bought with the intention of trading Magic cards, but an actual exchange never launched. Now, it's possible they had started developing it and just repurposed code, but I see no evidence that it was ever launched as a Magic trading site. Most likely, though -- they just had an unused domain laying around, and "Mt. Gox" sounded cool. I've repurposed domains before; I have a ton.