Mt. Gox, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, has lost around 850,000 bitcoins to hackers. This translates into almost half a billion dollars worth of the cryptocurrency, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Mark Karpeles, CEO of Tokyo, Japan-based Mt. Gox, acknowledged that the popular exchange had made its bankruptcy filing, CNET reported. He also indicated that nearly 750,000 of the stolen bitcoins belonged to customers and the other roughly 100,000 belonged to the exchange itself.
According to Karpeles, hackers exploited vulnerabilities in their computer systems in order to siphon the roughly 850,000 bitcoins.
Bitcoins are a form of virtual currency. Mt. Gox exchanges bitcoins for U.S. dollars and a number of other currencies. Historically, they’ve been the world’s largest bitcoin exchange.
What do you think about the epic failure at Mt. Gox, will Bitcoin survive? Will investors lose consumer confidence?
