Earlier this week, Mt.Gox suspended all Bitcoin withdrawals from the site, citing vulnerabilities to the “transaction malleability” glitch, preventing customers from removing their funds from the site. Today, the Tokyo-based exchange took things a step further, blocking all deposits and internal transfers for a “short site maintenance update.”
From the Mt.Gox press release:
In order to implement our solution to the ‘transaction malleability’ issue being faced by bitcoin exchanges and businesses, we are going to have a 6-hour downtime on all bitcoin deposits and internal bitcoin transfers in addition to the current pause on bitcoin withdrawals. Trading will otherwise still be open as usual.”
The downtime is unlikely to impact Bitcoin prices overall, and may not even impact prices at Mt.Gox much until their larger coding issues are resolved. With Bitcoin at Mt.Gox currently trading almost $300 below the rest of the market, and with many industry insiders publicly questioning the exchange’s future, it’s unlikely that many customers will be moving funds into the site.
