Mark Karpeles, CEO of Mt. Gox has submitted his resignation from the board of directors at Bitcoin Foundation. This move follows a string of technical issues that forced the exchange to suspend Bitcoin withdrawals.
“Effective immediately, Mt Gox has submitted their resignation from the board of directors. We are grateful for their early and valuable contributions as a founding member in launching the Bitcoin Foundation,” read the brief announcement Bitcoin foundation blog.
“MtGox Co. Ltd. (Japan) held one of the three elected industry member seats. Further details, including election procedures, will be forthcoming.”
Karpeles is the second board member to step down from the board of a key advocacy group for the digital currency in less than month as Charles Shrem, another prominent member, resigned after he was charged with conspiring drug scheme involving $1 million in the digital currency.
Earlier this month, Mt Gox halted the customer withdrawals temporarily, citing technical issues. Mt Gox has maintained that a fundamental flaw existed in Bitcoin software that needs to be addressed by the foundation.
Following this, the foundation’s chief scientist Gavin Andresen, in retaliation, defended the currency and claimed the issue to be with the exchange’s wallet service and also stated that the exchange should be able to fix it.
Later, the exchange revealed that it has identified the bug and is working on a fix for the ‘transaction malleability‘ bug that allows someone to alter transaction details. After a couple of days, Mt Gox announced the fix to arrive ASAP, but apparently had issues with office shifting to a new address that made their progress slow.
The value of the virtual currency plummeted on Mt. Gox to as low as $91.50 on February 21, while the exchange still had no answer for suspended withdrawals.
Mt Gox Bitcoins traded for as little as $151 today, down from $290 late yesterday, while currency is trading at $568 on London-based Bitstamp. Earlier today, Mt Gox’s Twitter feed was also emptied.
