The purpose of this document is to summarize a joint statement to the Bitcoin community regarding Mt.Gox. 
 
 This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt.Gox was the result of one company’s actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of bitcoin and the digital currency industry. There are hundreds of trustworthy and responsible companies involved in bitcoin. These companies will continue to build the future of money by making bitcoin more secure and easy to use for consumers and merchants. As with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be weeded out, and that is what we are seeing today. Mtgox has confirmed its issues in private discussions with other members of the bitcoin community 
 
 We are confident, however, that strong Bitcoin companies, led by highly competent teams and backed by credible investors, will continue to thrive, and to fulfill the promise that bitcoin offers as the future of payment in the Internet age. 
 
 In order to re-establish the trust squandered by the failings of Mt. Gox, responsible bitcoin exchanges are working together and are committed to the future of bitcoin and the security of all customer funds. As part of the effort to re-assure customers, the following services will be coordinating efforts over the coming days to publicly reassure customers and the general public that all funds continue to be held in a safe and secure manner: Coinbase, Kraken, BitStamp, Circle, and BTC China. 
 
 We strongly believe in transparent, thoughtful, and comprehensive consumer protection measures. We pledge to lead the way. 
 
 Bitcoin operators, whether they be exchanges, wallet services or payment providers, play a critical custodial role over the bitcoin they hold as assets for their customers. Acting as a custodian should require a high-bar, including appropriate security safeguards that are independently audited and tested on a regular basis, adequate balance sheets and reserves as commercial entities, transparent and accountable customer disclosures, and clear policies to not use customer assets for proprietary trading or for margin loans in leveraged trading. 
 
 
 
 
 
 The following industry leaders stand by this statement: 
 
 
 
 
 
 Fred Ehrsam and Brian Armstrong — Founders of Coinbase 
 
 Jesse Powell — CEO of Kraken 
 
 Nejc Kodrič — CEO of Bitstamp.net 
 
 Bobby Lee — CEO of BTC China 
 
 Nicolas Cary — CEO of Blockchain.info 
 
 Jeremy Allaire — CEO of Circle ||||| Mt. Gox, once the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, has gone offline, apparently after losing hundreds of millions of dollars due to a years-long hacking effort that went unnoticed by the company. 
 
 The hacking attack is detailed in a leaked “crisis strategy draft” plan, apparently created by Gox and published Monday by Ryan Selkis, a bitcoin entrepreneur and blogger (see below). According to the document, the exchange is insolvent after losing 744,408 bitcoins — worth about $350 million at Monday’s trading prices. The plan paints a bleak picture of the exchange’s finances and outlines an arbitrage scheme to restore the exchange to solvency. “The reality is that Mt. Gox can go bankrupt at any moment, and certainly deserves to as a company,” the document states. 
 
 WIRED couldn’t confirm the authenticity of the document. Reached Monday night, a Gox representative declined to comment on the document and referred us to the company’s webpage, before abruptly hanging up. But the website went offline a few hours after the company suspended trading on its exchange, and if the document is indeed authentic, the situation it described could reverberate across the world of bitcoin and possibly hamper the future of the digital currency. 
 
 Bitcoin insiders had been bracing for the worst from Mt. Gox for weeks, but the magnitude of the apparent theft — which would be the largest bitcoin heist ever — and the company’s alleged plan to replenish its stock of bitcoins took even seasoned bitcoiners by surprise. “Gox is the worst-run business in the history of the world,” said Roger Ver, in an instant message interview. Ver is a bitcoin advocate who lives across the street from Mt. Gox’s Tokyo offices and tried to help out the troubled exchange the last time it was hacked, back in 2011. 
 
 “Gox is the worst-run business in the history of the world” 
 
 –Roger Ver, bitcoin advocate 
 
 A coalition of bitcoin businesses — including bitcoin wallet-makers Coinbase and Blockchain — quickly put out a statement as news of the hack spread. “This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt. Gox was the result of one company’s abhorrent actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of bitcoin and the digital currency industry,” they said. “There are hundreds of trustworthy and responsible companies involved in bitcoin.” 
 
 As WIRED reported earlier, Gox has been in trouble since U.S. authorities seized $5 million of the company’s U.S. assets last year. Gox had been operating in the U.S. without the proper money transmission permits. Since that seizure, customers had reported months-long delays in receiving cash for their bitcoins, and earlier this month, Gox suspended all withdrawals, blaming a bug in its bitcoin wallet software. 
 
 Now, according to the alleged leaked document, it looks like hackers had been exploiting that bug for two years, and even removing bitcoins from supposedly secure “cold” wallets that the company had stored offline. Typically, cold wallets are disconnected from the internet and cannot be emptied by online attackers. However, the “cold storage has been wiped out due to a leak in the hot wallet,” the document states. 
 
 Gox’s collapse is another black eye to a virtual currency that’s been struggling to go legit. Last month, Charlie Shrem, the CEO of U.S. bitcoin exchanger Bitinstant, was arrested on money laundering charges. Both Shrem and Gox CEO Mark Karpeles had been board members with the Bitcoin Foundation, the digital currency’s lobbying and software development group. Both have now stepped down. But according to the alleged Mt. Gox document, the bitcoin world faces even bigger problems that the loss of these two men. “This could be the end of bitcoin,” the document reads, “at least for most of the public.” 
 
 MtGox Situation: Crisis Strategy Draft by twobitidiot ||||| The most prominent Bitcoin exchange appeared to be on the verge of collapse late Monday, raising questions about the future of a volatile marketplace. 
 
 On Monday night, a number of leading Bitcoin companies jointly announced that Mt. Gox, the largest exchange for most of Bitcoin’s existence, was planning to file for bankruptcy after months of technological problems and what appeared to have been a major theft. A document circulating widely in the Bitcoin world said the company had lost 744,000 Bitcoins in a theft that had gone unnoticed for years. That would be about 6 percent of the 12.4 million Bitcoins in circulation. 
 
 While Mt. Gox did not respond to numerous requests for comments, and the companies issuing the statement scrambled to determine the exact situation at Mt. Gox, which is based in Japan, the news helped push the price of a single Bitcoin below $500 for the first time since November, when it began a spike that took it above $1,200. 
 
 But at the same time that the news about Mt. Gox was emerging, a New York firm announced plans to create an exchange that could draw the world’s largest banks into the virtual currency market for the first time. 
 
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 The new exchange is being put together by SecondMarket, which rose to fame a few years ago after creating a platform for buying and selling shares of companies like Twitter and Facebook before they went public. 
 
 Without the trouble at Mt. Gox, the SecondMarket plans would have been seen as a major boon for virtual currencies, providing a potential entry point into the Bitcoin market for large banks, which have so far avoided virtual currencies as their price has skyrocketed. 
 
 Barry Silbert, SecondMarket’s chief executive, said that he had already talked with several banks and financial companies about joining the new exchange, along with financial regulators, and that he hoped to have it in operation this summer. 
 
 But plans for any new venture will be tested by the collapse of Mt. Gox, which could shake the faith of early Bitcoin adopters. Ryan Galt, a blogger who writes frequently about Bitcoin and was one of the first to circulate the news about Mt. Gox, wrote on Monday: “I do believe that this is one of the existential threats to Bitcoin that many have feared and have personally sold all of my Bitcoin holdings.” 
 
 On Monday, Mt. Gox took down all of its previous posts on Twitter, one day after its chief executive, Mark Karpeles, resigned from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for virtual currencies. 
 
 A statement from the chief executives of Bitcoin companies like Coinbase, Circle, Blockchain.info and Payward, said that the “tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt. Gox was the result of one company’s abhorrent actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of Bitcoin and the digital currency industry.” 
 
 The events are in keeping with the stark ups and downs of Bitcoin’s short existence. 
 
 Released in 2009 by an anonymous creator known as Satoshi Nakamoto, the Bitcoin program runs on the computers of anyone who joins in, and it is set to release only 21 million coins in regular increments. The coins can be moved between digital wallets using secret passwords. 
 
 While Bitcoin fans have said the technology could provide a revolutionary new way of moving money around the world, skeptics have viewed it variously as a Ponzi scheme or an investment susceptible to fraud and theft. 
 
 Many leading names in the Bitcoin community were still trying to determine the scope and potential consequences of the troubles at Mt. Gox. A document detailing the purported theft, labeled “Crisis Strategy Draft,” appeared to come from Mt. Gox. 
 
 While officials at the Bitcoin Foundation could not verify the origins of the document, they were preparing for the closure of Mt. Gox. 
 
 Patrick Murck, the foundation’s general counsel, said that “this incident just demonstrates the need for initiatives by responsible individuals and responsible members of the Bitcoin community like what’s being described” in SecondMarket’s initiative. 
 
 Mt. Gox’s difficulties this week are only the latest in a long line of problems at the Tokyo-based exchange. Created in 2010, Mt. Gox quickly became the most popular place to buy and sell Bitcoins. But the firm has suffered several intrusions and technological mishaps, which have led to steep declines in the currency’s price. A few weeks ago the company stopped allowing its customers to withdraw Bitcoins after it said it had discovered a flaw in some of the basic Bitcoin computer code. 
 
 While other exchanges were briefly hit by problems, they came back online. Mt. Gox never opened up again, prompting speculation about its future. 
 
 Until now, the major Bitcoin exchanges have all allowed anyone from the public to buy and sell virtual currency. SecondMarket’s plan is to create a platform more like the New York Stock Exchange, where only large institutions can join and trade. 
 
 Mr. Silbert says he will only open the exchange once they have several regulated financial institutions signed on as members. His hope, he says, is to give them partial ownership so that they have an incentive to trade there. 
 
 For much of Bitcoin’s life, banks have viewed the virtual currency with either derision or dismissiveness. 
 
 Recently, though, a number of banks have released research reports that have been less negative. A December report from Bank of America said that virtual currencies could become an important new part of the payment system, allowing money to move more cheaply than it does with credit cards and money transmitters like Western Union. 
 
 The statement from the Bitcoin companies on Monday night, which was not signed by Mr. Silbert, said that “in order to re-establish the trust squandered by the failings of Mt. Gox, responsible Bitcoin exchanges are working together and are committed to the future of Bitcoin and the security of all customer funds.” ||||| The issues at Mt.Gox caused anger in the bitcoin community with some customers taking to social media to express their dissatisfaction amid rumors that the company could be concealing financial difficulties. An unverified document circulating online claims that Mt.Gox has lost 744,408 bitcoins (worth around $350 million) due to theft related to the trading fault. 
 
 At 10 a.m. London time Tuesday, the source code for Mt.Gox's website changed, indicating an announcement could soon be uploaded. 
 
 
 
 Meanwhile, several other major exchanges from the bitcoin community released a joint statement on Monday, trying to restore confidence in the digital currency and distance themselves from the troubled Japan-based exchange. The statement initially featured details regarding the insolvency of Mt.Gox but were later removed. 
 
 "As with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be weeded out, and that is what we are seeing today. Mt.Gox has confirmed its issues in private discussions with other members of the bitcoin community," it said. 
 
 
 
 Bobby Lee, CEO of BTC China, one of the exchanges responsible for the statement, said it had been changed because of a lack of "verifiable evidence" by the organizations, even though he believed that it had reliable information to suggest that Mt.Gox was insolvent. Technology blog Re/code reported that a spokesperson for the group had confirmed that Mt.Gox "will file bankruptcy in private discussions with other members of the bitcoin community." 
 
 
 
 The Bitcoin Foundation, which aims to help promote and protect the alternative currency, issued a statement stating that it was shocked to learn about Mt Gox's "alleged insolvency." 
 
 
 
 (Read more: Bitcoin exchange to resume withdrawals after slump) 
 
 
 
 "While we are unable to comment on whether or not Mt.Gox's business operations employed operational best practices and reasonable accounting procedures, we can assure the public that the bitcoin protocol is functioning properly," it said. Mt.Gox was not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC. 
 
 The Wall Street Journal asked Karpeles last Monday about the company's solvency or protection for customers' funds. Karpeles replied that the matter is "confidential," adding that the company had discussed its business model with Japanese authorities "to ensure that we are operating within the law here." 
 
 
 
 The price of bitcoin fell to $425 by 6 a.m. London time, according to CoinDesk which tracks the price on a selection of major exchanges, after starting the day at $545, but rebounded shortly afterward. The price of the currency on Mt.Gox had fallen to around $100 before the exchange's website became inaccessible.
– Things have gone from bad to abysmal at Mt. Gox, long the largest and most popular Bitcoin exchange: Its CEO on Sunday resigned from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation; a day later the exchange deleted all of its tweets and went offline, displaying only a blank page, as an unverified document leaked that indicated it has been the victim of a debilitating theft, reports the AP. Mt. Gox initially suspended withdrawals earlier this month after discovering a bug in the Bitcoin software that hackers could exploit. Apparently hackers had been exploiting that bug, unnoticed, for two years, ultimately stealing 744,408 Bitcoins from the exchange, Wired reports, citing a leaked "crisis strategy draft plan" said to be created by Mt. Gox but not independently confirmed as authentic. If the document is genuine, that's a theft equivalent to about $350 million at yesterday's prices and the largest Bitcoin theft ever, representing about 6% of the 12.4 million Bitcoins in circulation, reports the New York Times. Yesterday six major exchanges issued a joint statement meant to shore up confidence in the currency, writing, "As with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be weeded out, and that is what we are seeing today." CNBC reports the statement initially suggested Mt. Gox was insolvent, but that detail was later removed due to a lack of "verifiable evidence."