Mt. Gox, one of the world’s biggest Bitcoin trading exchanges, has temporarily suspended all Bitcoin withdrawals with immediate effect as the team seeks to resolve technical issues experienced by some users while withdrawing Bitcoin.
The exchange says that the increase in withdrawal traffic was “hindering” its efforts on a technical level, and to “get a better look at the process the system needs to be in a static state.”
In order for our team to resolve the withdrawal issue it is necessary to temporarily pause all withdrawal traffic to obtain a clear technical view of the current processes.
Mt. Gox says withdrawals waiting to be processed will be returned to users’ wallets and can be re-initiated once it has resolved the technical issues. Customers can still use the trading platform as per usual.
The company will provide an update on Monday as it works through the weekend to resolve the problems.
Consequently, the price of Bitcoin has dropped. According to BitcoinWisdom, Bitcoin hit $619 at its lowest point today, from about $783 just 12 hours ago. It has started to rise slowly again — but is still far from the price it recorded yesterday.
Japan-based Mt. Gox is a service that allows Internet users to trade real-world currency for Bitcoin and vice-versa, but it has been beset with growing pains due to its popularity. The company suspended US dollar trading for two weeks in June and July last year to improve its service, and has suffered a number of DDoS attacks in the past — it was even forced to halt trading in April following a major Bitcoin price crash.
Subsequently in August, Mt. Gox announced that its service was running on Akamai, a move that it hoped could bring greater stability to the growing platform.
Headline image via George Frey/Getty Images
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.