Mt. Gox creator Jed McCaleb dabbling in mysterious Bitcoin project : report

By Nicel Jane Avellana

Feb 12, 2014 09:23 PM EST

The original creator of Mt. Gox Jed McCaleb is back in the Bitcoin business as he works on a secretive and mysterious project, TechCrunch reported. His latest endeavor can be found in the website secretbitcoinproject.com, the landing page of which bears only a brief note about his need for alpha testers.

The message simply read, "Come see. When I sold Mt. Gox a few years ago, Bitcoin was trading at less than a dollar. Today Bitcoin exists in a new environment. Mt. Gox is struggling to keep up. Now, I am building something that will be better for Bitcoin and better for you. I'm looking for alpha testers. -Jed"

It can be recalled that McCaleb was able to successfully turn the focus of Mt. Gox, which is actually an acronym for "Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange," to one of the world's biggest Bitcoin exchanges from merely an online card-trading platform, the report said.

Wanting to free himself from the legal issues that surround the operation of a digital currency exchange, McCaleb exited the platform in 2011 to a few French entrepreneurs based in Tokyo whom he had never met before. They took over the operations of the exchange which later went on to become the leading exchange for over one year in terms of volume, the report said.

The platform, however, has had a rocky six months. It fell out of favor as users began to have trouble taking out their funds. Just recently, Mt. Gox faced another set of problems as it temporarily stopped withdrawals. The firm said it saw a flaw in the Bitcoin protocol concerning "transaction malleability" that it had difficulty finalizing transactions. With other exchanges also issuing temporary stoppages to Bitcoin withdrawals, the Bitcoin Foundation said it was coming up with a solution to the issue, the report said.

TechCrunch also reported that a source told them that McCaleb has reportedly raised financing via instant messages and Skype.

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