Bankrupt Bitcoin exchange blames failure on hackers
Source: newsday.com
The Tokyo bitcoin exchange that filed for bankruptcy protection blamed theft through hacking for its losses Monday, and said it was looking into a criminal complaint.
In an announcement posted on the Mt. Gox exchange’s website, CEO Mark Karpeles outlined the events that resulted in the company’s insolvency and said there was a "high probability" theft was behind the disappearance of bitcoins."We will make all efforts to ensure that crimes are punished and damages recovered," Karpeles said.
He said Mt. Gox will try to resume business as a way of increasing repayments to its creditors.
The statement said illegal access to Mt. Gox in early February abused a bug in its computer system.
It also said "large discrepancies" were found between the amount of cash held in financial institutions and the amount deposited by users, meaning that about $28 million was unaccounted for.
Karpeles said Friday that 750,000 bitcoins deposited by users and another 100,000 belonging to the company disappeared. That would amount to about $425 million at recent prices.
He repeated the bitcoin numbers in Monday’s statement but said also the complete extent is not yet known.
A huge number of transactions must be investigated for a variety of problems to establish the truth, Karpeles said.
[...]
Read the full article at: newsday.com
READ: Mt. Gox files for bankruptcy, hit with lawsuit
