Mt. Gox Announces Maintenance: Hope is Not Lost

Mt Gox maintenance

After a whole lot of waiting, it seems like Mt. Gox is finally going to do something about the issue they are having. Earlier today, Mt. Gox sent out a very important maintenance announcement. This could possibly mean that after the maintenance period is over, Mt. Gox might be processing withdrawals and accepting deposits again.

Mt Gox’s Maintenance Announcement:

The Bitcoin exchange has said in the announcement:

Dear Mt. Gox Customers,
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.’ Maintenance Schedule (approximate): 6pm ~ 12am JST (February 15

The Bitcoin network allows transaction IDs to change before the transaction is finalized into the block chain, this is called transaction malleability. Mt. Gox had a problem with this. Basically if someone wants to mess around with the Bitcoin system, they can do so with transaction malleability. Therefore it comes as welcomed news that Mt. Gox is looking to do something about this issue.

Extensive Testing

Mt. Gox continues its maintenance announcement:

The above downtime period is approximate: it may be shortened or lengthened
as required. Once the implementation is complete customers will again be able
to deposit bitcoin, but we will be doing extensive testing before bitcoin
withdrawals are reactivated. We will publish an update on the situation on
Monday .

It is good to know that after the maintenance is completed, users will be able to deposit bitcoins. It is even better news that hopefully after a lot of testing, withdrawals will also be reactivated. It seems that Mt. Gox was actually trying to figure out how to deal with its problems after all. Who would have thought?

Implementing Changes

The maintenance announcement concludes with:

BlockChain.info have implemented changes to address the malleability issue.
Our solution should work in the short term, while a longer-term solution is being
discussed with the Bitcoin Core Dev team and the Bitcoin Foundation. We are
also discussing this with other exchanges and businesses.

Thank you for your support during the maintenance, and we will update you on
the progress shortly.

Best regards,
MtGox Team

Knowing there will be changes done in order to deal with transaction malleability makes us have hope that perhaps Mt. Gox can actually pull through. Sure, they weren’t exactly responsive to inquiries earlier, but perhaps it was because Mt. Gox was working behind the scenes in order to come up with a strategy to tackle their dilemma.

Regardless, even if Mt. Gox is able to finally accept deposits and withdrawals, who is to say the Bitcoin exchange won’t fail again? We hope not but only time will tell.

Coinreport will keep you all updated on this matter.

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