Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox said it was filing for bankruptcy protection and that 750,000 of its customers’ bitcoins and 100,000 of its own had been lost.
At market prices charted by the CoinDesk bitcoin index, that would represent a loss of $473 million.
The company’s lawyer also said at a news conference at the Tokyo District Court that Mt. Gox had outstanding debt of about 6.5 billion yen ($63.6 million) with assets worth ¥3.84 billion.
The exchange has been under fire from investors since it stopped bitcoin withdrawals in early February, citing a technical issue that potentially made fraudulent withdrawals possible.
On Tuesday, Mt. Gox, which at one point handled more than 80% of trades in the virtual currency, stopped all transactions, dealing the severest blow to the bitcoin industry yet and raising concerns about a lack of protection for users. Several Mt. Gox investors say they have little hope of recovering their funds, with some individual investors saying they had bitcoins valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars in Mt. Gox.
Customers from as far away as the U.K. and Australia have come to air their complaints outside the company’s Tokyo offices this month.
Mt. Gox has made two announcements on its otherwise empty website this week. On Tuesday, it said it had decided to close all transactions for the time being “to protect the site and our users.” On Wednesday, Mr. Karpeles said on the site that he was still in Japan and “working very hard” to find a solution to “our recent issues.”
Meanwhile, several people close to Mt. Gox say other factors than technical issues contributed the company’s difficulty in meeting customers’ withdrawal requests. They also blamed banks taking time to transfer money and some cited government requests.
The only known regulatory action involving Mt. Gox has come from U.S. authorities. Mt. Gox registered as a money-services business in the U.S. in June last year after authorities said it wasn’t properly registered in the country.
This month, federal prosecutors in Manhattan subpoenaed Mt. Gox, asking it to preserve certain documents, among other things, according to a person familiar with the matter.
If Mt. Gox or its employees sent emails or financial transfers through Manhattan, federal prosecutors there could claim jurisdiction as they have in past financial cases. This month’s federal subpoena was sent from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, the person said.
At market prices charted by the CoinDesk bitcoin index, that would represent a loss of $473 million.
The company’s lawyer also said at a news conference at the Tokyo District Court that Mt. Gox had outstanding debt of about 6.5 billion yen ($63.6 million) with assets worth ¥3.84 billion.
The exchange has been under fire from investors since it stopped bitcoin withdrawals in early February, citing a technical issue that potentially made fraudulent withdrawals possible.
On Tuesday, Mt. Gox, which at one point handled more than 80% of trades in the virtual currency, stopped all transactions, dealing the severest blow to the bitcoin industry yet and raising concerns about a lack of protection for users. Several Mt. Gox investors say they have little hope of recovering their funds, with some individual investors saying they had bitcoins valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars in Mt. Gox.
Customers from as far away as the U.K. and Australia have come to air their complaints outside the company’s Tokyo offices this month.
Mt. Gox has made two announcements on its otherwise empty website this week. On Tuesday, it said it had decided to close all transactions for the time being “to protect the site and our users.” On Wednesday, Mr. Karpeles said on the site that he was still in Japan and “working very hard” to find a solution to “our recent issues.”
Meanwhile, several people close to Mt. Gox say other factors than technical issues contributed the company’s difficulty in meeting customers’ withdrawal requests. They also blamed banks taking time to transfer money and some cited government requests.
The only known regulatory action involving Mt. Gox has come from U.S. authorities. Mt. Gox registered as a money-services business in the U.S. in June last year after authorities said it wasn’t properly registered in the country.
This month, federal prosecutors in Manhattan subpoenaed Mt. Gox, asking it to preserve certain documents, among other things, according to a person familiar with the matter.
If Mt. Gox or its employees sent emails or financial transfers through Manhattan, federal prosecutors there could claim jurisdiction as they have in past financial cases. This month’s federal subpoena was sent from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, the person said.