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A new report by researchers at ETH Zurich University in Switzerland has concluded that the now-bankrupt Japan-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox may have lost only 386 bitcoins ($203,000) due to issues stemming from transaction malleability. The finding provides new evidence that Mt. Gox’s continued claims that issues with the Bitcoin protocol were the primary reason for its insolvency are perhaps misleading or untrue. Released on 26th March, the report was authored by Christian Decker and Professor Roger Wattenhofer, both of the university’s Distributed Computing Group (DCG). Overall, the authors found that only 302,000 bitcoins could have ever been involved in...

A new report suggests that Mt. Gox, the now-bankrupt Japan-based exchange said to have lost 850,000 BTC in customer funds may actually still be in possession of 200,000 BTC ($118m at press time). The news, published by Yahoo Japan, allegedly comes from the exchange’s bankruptcy lawyer who suggests the bitcoins were found on 7th March in a wallet used by Mt. Gox prior to June 2011. The 200,000 bitcoins would equate to just over 23% of the entirety of the funds presumed lost by the company in the wake of widespread theft that is said to have occurred on the...

Mizuho Bank, one of Japan's largest lenders, has became ensnared in North American legal fallout from Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, which collapsed last month after losing nearly half a billion dollars worth of customers' digital currency. Lawsuits in the United States and Canada represent a new legal front - and a deep-pocketed defendant - in the battle over Mt. Gox, which claims hackers stole huge amounts of its own and its customers' assets. Mizuho, the core unit of Mizuho Financial Group Inc, Japan's second-biggest "megabank" by assets, was added as a defendant on Friday to an...

A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday temporarily froze the U.S. assets of Mt. Gox chief Mark Karpeles and allowed alleged victims of the shuttered bitcoin exchange to demand evidence of what they claim is a massive fraud. The market for the digital currency was rocked last month when Mt. Gox, once the world's largest bitcoin exchange, ceased operations, and soon after filed for bankruptcy. Mt. Gox said it may have lost 750,000 bitcoins, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, in a hacking attack. The freeze on Karpeles' assets, issued by Judge Gary Feinerman in Chicago, also applies to Mt. Gox's...

Troubled Japan-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection, an ancillary form of bankruptcy that will complement its primary Tokyo District Court claim issued on 28th February. US Chapter 15 bankruptcy provides specific protections in cases of cross-border insolvency, and is based on UN model law. Both Japan and the US have adopted Chapter 15 bankruptcy in an effort to better protect the interests of shareholders and maximize the value of debtor assets in cross-border bankruptcies.

Hackers (or disgruntled insiders) claim to have released a 700+MB file of Mt. Gox operational information and transaction data, including one sheet claiming the exchange could still have a balance of over 951,116 BTC. One of the hackers managed to post the data on Gox CEO Mark Karpeles’ own blog, then announced the feat on Reddit. Karpeles’ site has since gone completely offline and Reddit moderators deleted the original post. At press time the mods were engaged in a cat and mouse game with other community members who re-posted the original quote and several links claiming to be mirrors of...

Large amounts of bitcoins previously handled by Mt Gox, which have lain dormant for years, have started moving on the block chain. Since the exchange blew up at the end of last month, people have been wondering where the stolen coins went, and have tried to trace some movements between Gox addresses. One participant on the bitcoin talk forum recalled an IRC conversation between Gox CEO Mark Karpeles and various users, which allegedly took place on June 23, 2011.

The price of bitcoin is up more than 15% today on the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), having reached a high of $677.58 before settling to $659.50 at press time. The $659 figure was roughly $90 more than the opening price of $560, and marked the highest CoinDex BPI prices observed since mid-February, when troubled bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox was removed from the average amid escalating concern about its financial state. Press time lows on both BTC-e and Bitstamp were the highest observed since 23rd February, when Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles abruptly resigned from his board of director position...

U.S. and Japanese regulators are investigating the collapse of the world's largest exchange for trading bitcoins, the virtual currency that has grown in popularity among technophiles for buying products and services online. The separate investigations were launched Wednesday as supporters of the virtual currency insisted that the shutdown of Mt. Gox was only a temporary setback for the novel monetary system. The failure of the Tokyo exchange, which may have included the theft of almost 750,000 bitcoins worth more than $300 million, was seen by critics as derailing prospects for the virtual currency. But several high-profile bitcoin investors came forward...

A document has surfaced suggesting that troubled Japan-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox will close for one month as part of a four-step rebranding plan, and that CEO and former Bitcoin Foundation board member Mark Karpeles will step down from his executive position as part of the process. The bitcoin price has been tumbling all morning amid the news, hitting a low of $419 so far this morning. Entitled “Crisis Strategy Draft,” the document suggest the company’s increasingly dire financials are greatly impacting the decision. By Mt. Gox’s own estimates, they say, it has only 2,000 BTC and approximately $22.4m in...

MtGox is resigning from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation as it remains unable to restart full operations after claiming to have been hit by a bug. They've also deleted all Tweets from their Twitter account. A person familiar with the situation said it was not clear when MtGox would next update users about its technical problems. "They seem to be struggling with everything," the person said via email. A second person said they did expect the exchange to make an announcement in the coming days.

A new market will allow Mt. Gox customers to trade funds in their exchange accounts for bitcoin, effectively allowing bitcoin withdrawals despite an official freeze. The service, Bitcoin Builder, has also created an arbitrage opportunity for traders who wish to exploit the growing spread between the price of bitcoin on Mt. Gox and other major exchanges. According to the market’s founder Josh Jones, some 14,500 BTC (about $8.1m) worth of trades have been executed since it was set up on 11th Feb.

When Marco Crispini joined the Bitcoin meet-up in Tokyo two years ago, there were just a handful of members, assembling every month in a Shibuya fruit shop. As interest grew the proprietor complained, forcing the group – now holding weekly gatherings – into a nearby high-rise. On Thursday night – with talk likely to be dominated by events unfolding less than 200m away at Mt Gox, the world’s dominant Bitcoin exchange – turnout at the 11th-floor bar at the Hikarie tower is expected to be the best ever, at more than 30. “There is no getting the genie back in...

UPDATE (14th February, 11:38 GMT): Bitcoin exchange BTC-e has confirmed it is processing bitcoin withdrawals. ——————————- Bitstamp has revealed it plans to start processing its customers’ bitcoin withdrawals again later today. The exchange halted bitcoin withdrawals earlier this week after it was discovered a bot had launched a massive DDoS attack on a number of bitcoin exchanges

A “massive and concerted attack” has been launched by a bot system on numerous bitcoin exchanges, Andreas Antonopoulos has revealed. This has lead to popular exchange Bitstamp putting a temporary halt on all bitcoin withdrawals. Antonopoulos, who is the chief security officer of Blockchain.info, said a DDoS attack is taking Bitcoin’s transaction malleability problem and applying it to many transactions in the network, simultaneously. “So as transactions are being created, malformed/parallel transactions are also being created so as to create a fog of confusion over the entire network, which then affects almost every single implementation out there,” he added.

(Reuters) - The price of the digital currency bitcoin slid to its lowest level in nearly two months on Monday after bitcoin digital marketplace Mt. Gox said a halt on withdrawals it announced on Friday would continue indefinitely after it detected "unusual activity." The bitcoin price varied dramatically from one exchange to another, with Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, the best known operator of a bitcoin digital marketplace, recording one of the biggest drops for the day. On the Mt. Gox platform the currency plunged to as low as $500 early on Monday, down more than 27 percent from Friday's final price...

MADRID (MarketWatch) -- Bitcoin prices fell on Friday after exchange Mt. Gox said it was halting withdrawals temporarily. The company said an increase in flow of withdrawals requests "has hindered our efforts on a technical level. To understand the issue thoroughly, the system needs to be in a static state," said Mt. Gox officials in a note on the website Friday. To resolve the issue, it said a temporarily pause on all withdrawal requests was needed. Its tech team was working on its system, Mt. Gox added, and an update will be provided by Monday.