Mt. Gox Abandons Plans to Rebuild

The failed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has been placed in administration by a Japanese court and an order for bankruptcy is expected to be issued in the near future. According to reports the exchange has now stopped pursuing any plans to rebuild under bankruptcy protection.

A statement from the company’s CEO, Mark Karpeles, said, “The Tokyo District Court decided today to dismiss the application for commencement of a civil rehabilitation and at the same time, an order for Provisional Administration was issued and Attorney-at-law Nobuaki Kobayashi (Supervisor and Examiner under the Civil Rehabilitation Procedure) was appointed Provisional Administrator.”

It seems that one of the reasons Mt. Gox has abandoned plans to rebuild is that it would be incredibly complicated to hold meetings with creditors spread around the world, there would also be significant legal complexities.

Karpeles has refused to travel to the US to answer questions about the exchange’s US bankruptcy case which is separate to the Japanese case. At one point the company processed around 80% of bitcoin transactions, but it froze all withdrawals in February after hackers exploited a bug in its software to steal 850,000 bitcoins.