A source told The Wall Street Journal that CEO Mark Karpelès of Mt. Gox has resigned from the Bitcoin Foundation board of directors. This was also confirmed by the Bitcoin Foundation through a statement on its website. The release also expressed its gratitude to the Tokyo-based Bitcoin platform for launching the foundation, the report said.
The resignation from Mt. Gox of its board seat came as the Bitcoin exchange continues to deal with technical problems that started last summer when it temporarily suspended US dollar withdrawals. The issue grew worse this month when Mt. Gox said a software bug enabled users to change transactions, prompting the exchange to stop all withdrawals. Because of the issues, CoinDesk took out Mt. Gox from its pricing index for the digital currency earlier this month. Mt. Gox customers were informed last week that the exchange was still in the process of putting back withdrawals, the report said.
The Bitcoin Foundation is a trade organization that promotes the digital currency which seats several representatives from the industry on its board. Mt. Gox is one of them. A lot of Bitcoin investors had urged Karpelès to resign from the foundation. One of them was a marketing consultant based in Britain who called for the ouster of the Mt. Gox CEO through a petition posted over the Internet, the report said.
This is the second high-profile resignation from the Bitcoin Foundation recently. Late last month, Charles Shrem resigned after being accused of money laundering charges linked to his Bitcoin firm. He has denied the charges, pleading not guilty, the report said.
In Tokyo, Mt. Gox bitcoins were priced at $191 in midday trading while those in the Coindesk index were trading at about $578. Boston University finance lecturer Mark T. Williams told The WSJ that the discount at Mt. Gox is a reflection of the ongoing belief in the markets that "bankruptcy is a high possibility."
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