Bitcoin value drops sharply after tech issues continue
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26118002

Bitcoin's value has dropped sharply after one of the largest trading exchanges said there was a flaw in the virtual currency's underlying software.

MtGox said it had halted transfers to external Bitcoin addresses on Friday after detecting "unusual activity".

It said an investigation had revealed it was possible for thieves to fool the transaction process so that double the correct amount of bitcoins would be sent.

Bitcoins fell from $700 (£427) to $540.

The Tokyo-based firm said it was now working with the Bitcoin core development team to "mitigate this issue", which it said was not limited to its own Bitcoin-wallet system.

A Bitcoin wallet is the place where Bitcoin addresses - the virtual post-boxes where each bitcoin is stored -are kept.

It added that cash withdrawals and transfers of bitcoins to - rather than from - Bitcoin Wallets were unaffected.

MtGox said in a statement: "A bug in the bitcoin software makes it possible for someone to use the Bitcoin network to alter transaction details to make it seem like a sending of bitcoins to a Bitcoin wallet did not occur when in fact it did occur.

"Since the transaction appears as if it has not proceeded correctly, the bitcoins may be resent."

so, this was suppesed to be foolproof, or fraud proof ?:disgust

The sooner GOX gets out of the BTC business and they go back to trading gaming cards the better.

Every major issue with BTC has been due to GOX, surely they have to think to themselves if they are the only ones who are fucking things up, its time to get out while the going is good.

Spreading this misinformation is almost as stupid as them saying it in the first place. The flaw is with Mt.Gox, not Bitcoin.

completely agree, any other same btc trade site is 100x better than gox

I second this these guys cost a lot of people a lot of money............

yeah the mofo's got some big balls on them :mad:

I'm pretty sure everyone here is thinking the same thing!

Chris Mallick is fucked up Bitcoin too!

Gavin Andresen and Jeff Garzik: Mt. Gox is Wrong, Bitcoin isn?t Broken. Mt. Gox?s issue is with a technical detail called transaction malleability, which has been known about since 2011 and even has its own wiki entry: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_Malleability
This has to do with systems, such as Mt.Gox, that rely on unconfirmed transactions. For all other Bitcoin applications that rely on confirmed transactions, as they should, this is not an issue. Mt.Gox' escrow wallet service only checks transaction hash. If anybody changes transaction hash before transaction is included into block, service considers transaction invalid and returns coins back to the owner's virtual account. But transaction itself is not invalid, it is finally accepted and coins are sent to the owner.

Details: When somebody who trades on the exchange wants to take bitcoins out of the system, Mt. Gox has to transfer those bitcoins from its own wallet. When it does, it makes a note of the transaction by recording the hash. If the hash is changed before it gets entered into the block chain, then the hash that Mt. Gox recorded for a transaction and its actual unique ID in the public ledger won?t match up. A Mt. Gox customer could potentially withdraw bitcoins, have the hash changed, and then claim that never actually received the bitcoins withdrawn. When Mt. Gox checks its records, it won?t find the hash that it recorded for the transaction anywhere in the block chain. The result could be that Mt. Gox ends up paying the customer more than once.

here the btc ticker

http://bitcoinity.org/markets/image?span=7d&size=medium

Buy buy buy.

It's still enough to panic the sheep.

There are a couple of sellers in my area on localbitcoins that are encouraging people to cash out while they can.

Here's another story about a flaw which allowed someone to withdraw far more than their account balance (at another exchange, not related to this BTC *cough* "problem" *cough*)

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comm..._exchange_and/

Mintpal was also fleeced of 40 BTC somehow...

Makes you wonder how many exchanges are technically insolvent. Did mtgox suspend BTC withdrawals in order to prevent a run?

Time to buy