BITCOIN. It’s the confusing crypto-currency beloved by tech geeks and criminals that was supposed to be the future of money.
But five years after it was founded by Satoshi Nakamoto in Japan, a major mystery is unfolding inside the secretive world.
Websites have been hacked, half a billion dollars is missing, global finance ministers are confounded and investors are penniless.
Overnight, the currency claimed its first life with Autumn Radtke, 28, the American boss of a Singapore bitcoin exchange found dead in her apartment. And still no one knows how bad things are or who is to blame.
In the last two weeks, two major bitcoin exchanges — the online banks where users buy and sell the currency — have disappeared.
The first was Mt Gox, a Tokyo-based website run by Mark Karpeles that had been regarded as the biggest and most trusted site for bitcoin trades.
It filed for bankruptcy in late February admitting a bug in their system had been abused by hackers to steal 850,000 bitcoins with a street value of about $500 million.
The site was quickly taken down and their Twitter feed deleted. All that remains is a letter posted by Mr Karpeles that says “the complete extent [of the alleged hack] is not yet known”.
Adding to panic is a robbery at another exchange, Flexcoin, which admitted to having nearly 900 coins worth about $600,000 stolen from its online vault.
Overnight, the death of Ms Radtke added to the mystery around the crypto-currency.
The events are a blow for bitcoin, which since its inception in 2009 has exploded in popularity among currency speculators, libertarians and criminals, but is still struggling to gain mainstream acceptance.
The mysterious coin is best described as a kind of cash for the internet that is stored in an online “wallet” and can be used to make anonymous payments.
Behind the scenes a public ledger known as the “block chain” is used to verify transactions are valid.
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