MT. Gox Temporary Halt on Withdrawals
Posted on February 19, 2014.There has been a lot of bad press lately regarding the bitcoin currency, which earlier this month slid to its lowest level after bitcoin digital marketplace Mt. Gox issued a temporary halt on withdrawals due to unexplained technical issues.
Mt. Gox stated that withdrawals were on hold indefinitely after a detection in unusual activity on its bitcoin wallets had been detected. In effect this ‘bug in the bitcoin software’ could allow for someone on the network to alter transaction details to make it appear a transfer of bitcoins from one digital wallet to another had not occurred when in fact it had, allowing for the transfer to be repeated.
The issue was not limited to exchange and affected all transactions where bitcoins were being sent to a third party. Mt. Gox issued the withdrawal suspension which will be in effect until the issue had been resolved.
This issue resulted in the Mt. Gox platform currency plunging from US $692 to as low as US $500 which is a much larger intensity than seen in the past.
What Does this Mean for Sure Bitcoin users?
Most of these attacks are perpetrated against non-standard implementation of the bitcoin wallet and server protocol. Sure Bitcoin uses a system to which does not allow any use of customisation of wallets because we believe that this is a bad security practice, as any changes to the implementation of the bitcoin protocol could invalidate the use of a customised wallet.
Sure Bitcoin states that all transfer of bitcoins into either Sure Bitcoin or withdrawals out can take up to 24 hours, so we can wait for the network to confirm the transaction has been performed successfully with no interference.
As for internal transactions between customers on the website, these transactions will happen instantly and will be more secure against external attacks making signature forging impossible. Unlike Mt. Gox we believe that this is a reasonable standard for any bitcoin service.
