The Last Days Of BitPompeii

Looks like Mt. Gox has exploded in a veritable mountain of bullshit.

The troubled MtGox Bitcoin exchange filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan Friday, saying it had lost nearly half a billion dollars worth of the digital currency in a possible theft.

Problematic.

Mark Karpeles, who has not been seen in public for several days, re-emerged to tell a press conference that his firm's digital vaults had been almost completely emptied.

"We have lost Bitcoins due to weaknesses in the system," the France-born Karpeles said in Japanese.

"We are really sorry for causing trouble to all the people concerned," he said, before bowing deeply.

The company's lawyer said 750,000 Bitcoins belonging to customers had gone, along with MtGox's own store of the currency, which she said was around 100,000 units.

Ahh Bitcoin, the safe, stateless world commodity/currency of the future, running smack into that oldest and most venerable of human frailties, greed.  It was only a matter of time, yadda yadda yadda.  So somebody has half a billion in digital money and a lot of suckers got bilked.

Why, Bitcoin almost seems like the ultimate glibertarian meltdown.  Funny how that works.