Bitcoin Faces More Problems: World's Biggest Bitcoin Exchange Hacked, Another Closes

After last week’s meteoric rise in both value and public awareness, things just keep getting worse for BitCoin this week. The world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, was temporarily closed down today by a cyberattack while another, BitFloor, permanently closed Wednesday.

Mt. Gox took to Facebook on Thursday to confirm that the website’s closure was in fact due to a DDoS attack, a “denial of service” hack. At the time of writing, the problem seems to have been resolved and the page is up and writing.

On April 10, the extreme fluctuations in Bitcoin’s value – which went as high as $260 before plummeting to as low as $50 over the course of a few days – overloaded Mt. Gox’s servers, causing the website to suspend trading for several hours. Over the next two days, it was hit by two different DDoS attacks.

During the Mt. Gox outage, many people took their Bitcoins to other exchanges, including BitFloor. Apparently Bitcoin’s rollercoaster value was too much for them to handle, and BitFloor’s founder, Roman Shtylman, posted a statement on its website announcing the website’s closure.

“Unfortunately, our U.S. bank account is scheduled to be closed and we can no longer provide the same level of [U.S. dollar] deposits and withdrawals as we have in the past,” Shtylman wrote. “As such, I have made the decision to halt operations and return all funds. Over the next days we will be working with all clients to ensure that everyone receives their funds. Please be patient as we process your request.”

In September, when Bitcoins were only worth about $10, BitFloor was robbed of about 24,000 Bitcoins.

Some experts are saying that the Bitcoin exchange's troubles may be at least part of the reason for Bitcoin's struggling value.