Bitcoin is going through another significant dip after the CEO of Mt. Gox, a controversial Bitcoin currency exchange service, stepped down from the Bitcoin Foundation, the committee that oversees management of the virtual currency. A blog post from the foundation reveals that Mark Karpeles has resigned from his board seat, but doesn’t give a reason for his departure. The exit is likely due to ongoing technical issues that have hit Mt. Gox particular hard over the past month.
Mark Karpelès, chief executive officer of Mt. Gox, the embattled Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange, resigned on Sunday from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, according to a person familiar with the situation. The Bitcoin Foundation confirmed in a statement on its website that Mt. Gox had resigned its board seat and thanked Mt. Gox for its efforts in launching the group. The move comes amid a string of long-standing technical issues that began last summer when Mt. Gox halted customer withdrawals in U.S. dollars. The problems became more severe earlier this month when Mt. Gox halted all customer withdrawals, saying that a bug in the software for bitcoin allowed some users to alter transactions. The problems prompted CoinDesk to remove Mt. Gox from its bitcoin-pricing index earlier this month.