MtGox files for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo
A lawyer for the troubled Bitcoin exchange MtGox has a told a press conference in Tokyo that the company has filed for bankruptcy protection and has an outstanding debt of $63m (£37m), according to the Wall Street Journal.
MtGox CEO Mark Karpeles has since given a press a conference where he apologised for the "weakness in our system."
"The Bitcoin industry is healthy and it is growing. It will continue, and reducing the impact is the most important point," he added.
Earlier in the week, MtGox suspended trading, took it's website offline and erased the company's twitter account.
The exchange had reportedly lost 744,408 Bitcoin – roughly six per cent of Bitcoin circulation – due to problems with the exchange's software.
MtGox had been plagued for some time by the transaction malleability problem. On Monday, Mark Karpeles resigned from his position on the board of the Bitcoin foundation.
The past week has seen a dramatic fall from grace for a company that once handled 80 per cent of all global dollar trades for Bitcoin. However, Bitcoin fans should not despair, there are in fact a host of reasons why the collapse of MtGox is great news for the world's most popular cryptocurrency.