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It’s been a tough week for bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. Not only has the exchange halted withdrawals, but it released a statement on Monday that had a good chunk of the bitcoin community reaching for their pitchforks.
Mt. Gox blamed an issue in the bitcoin software as a reason for the withdrawal halt, and noted that withdrawals would resume once a proper fix was in place.
Widespread outrage over Mt. Gox’s claims were felt on social sharing website Reddit.com, along with Twitter and Facebook — accusing Gox CEO Mark Karpeles of “throwing bitcoin under the bus” in defense of his company. Others demanded Karpeles resign from his board position at the Bitcoin Foundation.
Karpeles is now responding, noting that he stands behind his company’s systems, though he expresses regret that Monday’s announcement upset people in the community.
Highlights (out of order):
Note that our announce[ment], while unfortunately upsetting a lot of people, allowed other exchanges to be much more cautious when faced with failing transactions, and most likely helped a lot of people understanding and dealing with the problem.
On the topic of the issue itself:
The Bitcoin Foundation has hired Bitcoin Developers for the purpose of promoting Bitcoin use. I guess the most puzzling part is why this issue hasn’t be[en] solved since 2011.
Possible solution:
We have proposed a solution that would allow people sending bitcoins to track sent coins no matter what happens in terms of malleability (a solution that can be applied quickly and without breaking anything), and the Bitcoin developers are preparing ways to prevent modified transactions from being relayed by the network (which will take a lot of time and may break some bitcoin custom clients).
If you’ve been following this issue, we urge you to read the full interview on the Forbes website.
