UPDATED 01:03 EDT / FEBRUARY 24 2014

Mt. Gox’s Mark Karpeles resigns from the Bitcoin Foundation

medium_7459091840Mt. Gox’s CEO Mark Karpeles has announced his resignation from the Bitcoin Foundation, in what some might interpret as yet another sign of the growing friction between the troubled Bitcoin exchange and the rest of the cryptocurrency community.

Karpeles’ resignation was announced on the Bitcoin Foundation blog, and the story was first picked up by the Wall Street Journal. The CEO was one of three elected members from the industry that sat on the Bitcoin Foundation’s board of directors. The Foundation’s blog post added that more details regarding the situation, including information on the election procedure for the new board member, would be released soon.

Mt. Gox’s problems over the last few weeks have been well documented by SiliconANGLE. The exchange has come in for severe criticism from the rest of the Bitcoin community, first because it suspended withdrawals indefinitely, and later for blaming its problems on something known as a “transaction malleability”, a long-standing bug in the Bitcoin protocol.

The exchange’s operators have also come in for criticism for a lack of communication with its customers, many of whom have large sums of money on the site that they cannot access. It’s widely believed that Mt. Gox’s problems are the reason for the recent slump in Bitcoin’s value – indeed, the price of Bitcoin on the site itself briefly slumped to less than $100 on Friday before rebounding slightly (meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin remains around $575 on most other exchanges).

Karpeles’ resignation comes just weeks after another senior Bitcoin Foundation member left the organization under a cloud. Charlie Shrem, CEO of BitInstant, tendered his resignation last January after being arrested on charges of money laundering.

photo credit: zcopley via photopin cc

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