THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FEBRUARY 24, 2014
TOKYO—The website of major bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox is offline Tuesday amid reports it suffered a debilitating theft, a new setback for efforts to gain legitimacy for the virtual currency. The URL of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox was returning a blank page. The disappearance of the site follows the resignation Sunday of Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, a group seeking legitimacy for the currency. At the Tokyo office tower housing Mt. Gox, bitcoin trader Kolin Burgess said he had picketed the building since Feb. 14 after flying in from London, hoping to get back $320,000 he has tied up in bitcoins with Mt Gox. “I may have lost all of my money,” said Burgess, next to placards asking if Mt. Gox is bankrupt. “It hasn’t shaken my trust in Bitcoin, but it has shaken my trust in bitcoin exchanges.” (more)
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FORBES 2/25/2014 @ 1:56AM
Bitcoin's Price Plummets As Mt. Gox Goes Dark, With Massive Hack Rumored
For years, Mt. Gox was the most important business in the Bitcoin economy. Now, as it teeters on the brink of total failure, it’s become the cryptocurrency’s greatest liability and one that may call its future into question. Bitcoin’s value fell close to 23% from its already battered price to around $418 at its lowest point Monday night as the oldest and once-largest Bitcoin exchange went offline completely, showing a blank website and even deleting all messages from its Twitter feed. That dramatic drop in Bitcoin’s price, in fact, doesn’t even factor in the digital currency’s exchange rate on Mt. Gox itself, where Bitcoins were selling for less than $200 as users feared that they wouldn’t be able to retrieve coins they’d bought due to the company’s potential bankruptcy. And while the company went silent, rumors have swirled that its downtime is a result of a massive hack that has stolen as many as 744,000 bitcoins, fully 6% of all bitcoins in existence. (more)
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