Sunday morning has brought us very important announcment that CEO and owner of the notorious exchange service MT.Gox Mark Karpeles has resigned from a responsible position at the Bitcoin Foundation. The proof of the fact can be found in the blog of the organization, saying:
“Effective immediately, Mark Karpeles has submitted his resignation from the board of directors. We are grateful for his early and valuable contributions as a founding member in launching the Bitcoin Foundation. As CEO of MtGox Co. Ltd. (Japan), he held one of the three elected industry member seats. Further details, including election procedures, will be forthcoming.”
The exchanger from Japan is keeping silent and rejects to give any authorized comments. All attempts to receive explanations have ended with unanswered calls in the general office. As the company was one of the members of the board of the Foundation, the decision has led to particular and very unpleasant consequences – the price of the Bitcoin has dropped by around 7% globally. The decrease continues the recession initiated by the recent problems of the platform. Earlier it has stopped withdrawals of funds due to unreasonable claims like:
“A bug in the Bitcoin software makes it possible for someone to use the Bitcoin network to alter transaction details to make it seem like a sending of Bitcoins to a Bitcoin wallet did not occur when in fact it did occur.”
The insolvency and incompetence of the administration and developers of the company has led to irony from common users and experts of the branch. Blockchain chief security officer Andreas Antonopoulos allowed himself to call the Mt.Gox “clownish” and “incompetent” during a Let's Talk Bitcoin podcast.
Both crucial events for the currency and the foundation were followed by a very childish action – all tweets were erased from the official account of Mt.Gox, as if it would solve any problems or return the trust of the numerous customers. The 28K subscribers reacted in an instant with skeptic comments and unhidden sarcasm on Reddit:
“It’s due to a flaw in the Twitter protocol.”
Or
“Tweet malleability damn near cost me all 140 characters and my entire history too!”
Only some supportive and comforting words were published by Charlie Shrem, whose position is also unenviable as he was arrested for money laundering in January and also resigned his position at the Bitcoin Foundation. He wrote on Reddit:
“This is actually good news. I applaud Mark and the MtGox team for making the right decision as I had to do the same. Speaking very lengthy to Mark and the team over the weekend, I see good news on the horizon for people who have funds stuck in MtGox (I also have funds in MtGox stuck).”
It should be emphasized that the move of Mr.Karpeles was done under pressure of more than 1700 dissatisfied coin users, who have stated their position right after the failure of Mt.Gox. Hopefully the currency will as soon as possible restore its deserved and initial price. Anyway the contingent of the Bitcoin foundation undergoes a natural cleaning as the rats believe to desert a sinking ship.