Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Still Halting Withdrawals, Frustrating Users

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The Japanese bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox remained close today while protests camped outside its headquarters. The exchange had promised it would be resuming withdrawals today, but that didn’t happen. Instead, it posted another “update on an update.”

Mt. Gox moves locations

The value of a bitcoin on the Japanese exchange has continued to plummet, falling down to $111 today as enthusiasts of the digital currency abandon it to head for one of the other exchanges.

In a letter posted on its website, Mt. Gox said in addition to the technical issues the exchange has been facing, it has also experienced “some security problems.” The bitcoin exchange relocated back to their previous building in Shibuya. It said that move, along with the continued technical challenges and the security issues, pushed back their progress on getting withdrawals back up and running on the site. Mt. Gox promised to provide more details as soon as it could.

Protestors camp outside Mt. Gox

Meanwhile, a protest outside the bitcoin exchange’s headquarters stretched into the seventh day. Mt. Gox users have been unable to withdraw their digital currency and convert it into dollars since the beginning of this month. The company blamed the issues on a flaw in the currency itself and said that it affected every exchange. However, Mt. Gox is the only one which has been experiencing issue, and prices have remained fairly stable at competing exchanges.

CNBC reports that Kolin Burges, a customer of Mt. Gox, was one of two who traveled to Japan to try to retrieve his bitcoins and learn more about the problems at the exchange. He reportedly told CNBC that there were suggestions that the ongoing protest was the reason Mt. Gox moved and that the company’s landlord had threatened to kick it out of the space. However, he doesn’t think that this was the case and believes instead that users of the exchange who have a lot of money tied up in it may have more formally made some kind of physical threat against Mt. Gox.

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