The website of Mt.Gox, the first bitcoin exchange, went offline. When you try to access it, the server responds, however no data is available. That means that all files were removed. Besides, Mt.Gox also deleted its feed in Twitter.
On February 24, information that the bitcoin exchange is getting bankrupt was leaked to the internet. The bitcoin enthusiast Ryan Selkis posted a document claiming that the exchange lost 744,400 bitcoins over several years. This amount of bitcoins is estimated at about $370 million (at a current bitcoin rate).
“The reality is that Mt.Gox can go bankrupt at any moment, and certainly deserves to as a company,” it says. The journalists of Wired contacted the Mt.Gox representative, however the latter rejected to comment on this matter. He recommended the media to find more information on the exchange official website and hang up.
The community of the bitcoin companies reacted to the closure. The joint statement suggests that Mt.Gox violated the trust of its users. Initially it also contained the information on the exchange insolvency. That detail was deleted afterwards.
The Tokio-based exchange had been facing some technical problems for the last weeks. Too many request for withdrawal provoked some software glitch, and Mt.Gox had to put it on hold.
The exchange representatives laid the blame on a “transaction malleability” that enables a user to change the status of the transaction before it is approved. Fraudsters, in their turn, took advantage of the bug. The thing is that after receiving bitcoins to their accounts, the swindlers claimed that the cryptocurrency was not credited. In other words, there were double transactions. Nevertheless, according to Coindesk.com, the users were not able to spend the same bitcoin twice.
