Tim Wander
The failure of Mt. Gox might be goo for Bitcoin?
From a distance, the world's largest bitcoin exchange looked like a towering example of renegade entrepreneurism. But on the inside, according to some who were there, Mt. Gox was a messy combination of poor management, neglect, and raw inexperience.
The Bitcoin world went into a panic on February 24 at 6:23 pm EST. That's when prominent Bitcoin blogger Ryan Selkis made a post to his blog in which he described an unverified report that Mt. Gox - a popular Bitcoin exchange - may have lost nearly 745,000 BTC (the Bitcoin currency unit).
On Friday, Mt.Gox announced it would be filing for bankruptcy after losing track of nearly 750,000 customer bitcoins as well as 100,000 of its own bitcoins, totaling a nearly $500 million loss. This is a tough blow. What does this mean for you and Bitcoin as a currency?
The Japanese exchange Mt. Gox has long been one of the Bitcoin community's most prominent institutions. It has also been one of its biggest PR headaches. In 2011, the value of a bitcoin soared from less than $1 to more than $32. Much of this trading occurred on Mt.
Even as the disgraced Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy Friday, another is standing up - and soon it'll allow investors to buy and sell the virtual currency in the United States. New York-based SecondMarket is spinning off its Bitcoin-based businesses into a new venture.
Whenever I read a story about bitcoin, the virtual currency that has been so much in the news these days, I think about a man named Dee Hock. In the early 1970s, Hock created the credit card system that we now know as Visa. Hock was a man who liked to think grandiose thoughts.
The most prominent Bitcoin exchange appeared to be on the verge of collapse late Monday, raising questions about the future of a volatile marketplace. On Monday night, a number of leading Bitcoin companies jointly announced that Mt.
LESS than a year ago Mt Gox was the pinnacle of bitcoin trading, accounting for an estimated 70% of the cryptocurrency's global transactions. Today Mt Gox is...
