The writing’s been on the wall, and now those walls have crumbled: Mt. Gox, which until recently was the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world, has declared bankruptcy.
Mt. Gox had behaved erratically in recent months, stopping all customer withdrawals in January and going completely offline by Feb. 24. A leaked document, which CEO Mark Karpeles reportedly admitted in a private chat was “more or less legitimate,” showed the company wasn’t sure why it had lost about 744,408 bitcoins (more than $300 million) over the course of several years.
In a press conference about the bankruptcy in Tokyo, where Gox is based, Karpeles said in Japanese that he was “truly sorry to have caused inconvenience,” according to the New York Times.
Mt. Gox hasn’t been accepting press inquiries and has instructed its employees to not talk to the media. Its website currently bears a message from Karpeles, posted Wednesday: “I would like to use this opportunity to reassure everyone that I am still in Japan, and working very hard with the support of different parties to find a solution to our recent issues.”
Screengrab via FNNnewsCH/YouTube
