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Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange reportedly robbed and in trouble

Mt Gox Game Over

Two major publications are reporting significant news about the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange this morning. First, Wired is reporting that Mt. Gox has gone offline amid allegations of a $350MM hack. According to the story in Wired:

“Mt. Gox, once the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, has gone offline, apparently after losing hundreds of millions of dollars due to a years-long hacking effort that went unnoticed by the company.

The hacking attack is detailed in a leaked “crisis strategy draft” plan, apparently created by Gox and published Monday by Ryan Selkis, a bitcoin entrepreneur and blogger (see below). According to the document, the exchange is insolvent after losing 744,408 bitcoins — worth about $350 million at Monday’s trading prices. The plan paints a bleak picture of the exchange’s finances and outlines an arbitrage scheme to restore the exchange to solvency.”

The “crisis strategy draft” plan shared by Wired is embedded below.

In a related story, Quartz is reporting that a number of other industry Bitcoin industry notables, including the CEOs of exchange BTC China, Coinbase, BitStamp, Blockchain.info, Kraken and Circle have issued a statement condemning Mt. Gox.

“As with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be weeded out, and that is what we are seeing today. We are confident, however, that strong bitcoin companies, led by highly competent teams and backed by credible investors, will continue to thrive, and to fulfill the promise that bitcoin offers as the future of payment in the Internet age.” 

MtGox Situation: Crisis Strategy Draft

The Winklevoss twins introduce the “Winkdex” Bitcoin index

Windex

The Winklevoss twins have introduced a Bitcoin price index according to CoinDesk. Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.

Citigroup advisor shares thoughts on Bitcoin

irvingIrving Wladawsky-Berger, Citigroup strategic advisor and former researcher for IBM, has written a very well-reasoned piece on his view of Bitcoin. In his post, Reflections on Bitcoin, Wladawsky-Berger comes to three primary conclusions. He says:

“So, after reading and reflecting on these various articles, here is how I would now summarize my views on Bitcoin:

  • The cryptographic advances and technologies underlying Bitcoin will likely play a major role in the development of the Internet of Money, that is, an Internet era, digital money ecosystem. But, as is the case with all complex platforms, its architecture, protocols and governance will have to evolve. It remains to be seen whether the resulting platform will still be called Bitcoin or something else will have taken its place.
  • For the foreseeable future, the bulk of the money flowing through such a digital money ecosystem will continue to be based on existing currencies. Digital currencies may play important niche roles. It’s not clear at this point whether Bitcoin itself will be one of the surviving digital currencies.
  • Given the central role played by money in all aspects of the economy, society and our personal lives, governments will continue to regulate its use, whether based on existing or new digital currencies.”

Read the full piece here.

 

 

New Bitcoin Ebook Available: Conversational Bitcoin

placeit

Have you been hearing a lot about Bitcoin, but still not entirely sure what it is? This easy-to-read ebook answers the following questions:

  • What is Bitcoin?
  • Why should I care about Bitcoin?
  • How do bitcoins get exchanged?
  • Are bitcoins money?
  • Why should a business accept bitcoin?
  • Why should I personally use bitcoins?
  • What are the risks?

You can download the ebook at https://coindale.com/bitcoinbook.

Overstock.com begins accepting bitcoins for purchases

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Today Overstock.com jumped into the Bitcoin pool and began accepting bitcoins as a payment methods for purchases. On December 2st, Overstock’s CEO Patirck Byrne had told TechCrunch that Overstock was considering accepting Bitcoin  sometime in 2014. Now, just nine days into the new year, Overstock has gone live with bitcoins as a purchase option. Cade Metz from Wired has the full story.