Changing the Face of Bitcoin?

Industry Group Aims to Change Bitcoin Symbol to ‘Ƀ’

There is an effort to better represent bitcoin as a symbol is launched. The Unicode ‘Ƀ’ symbol has been chosen by a website of industry members as a way to better legitimize bitcoin as a symbol both in print and online media.

It is already an existing Unicode character under the non-profit corporation Unicode Consortium, which describes it as a "latin capital B with stroke" that has the hex Alt +0243. A number of bitcoin companies already use Ƀ as the symbol to denote bitcoin. They include ZeroBlock, Lamasuu, Tip4Commit.

The current bitcoin symbol

Bitcoin has long been denoted as B however it is not recognized as a Unicode symbol by the Unicode Consortium, which develops such standards. Having a symbol in Unicode form means it would work in different fonts and formats and would help to better convey the cryptocurrency to the masses in various forms of media.

There has been community discussion to get B⃦ used in conjunction with the Unicode Consortium, with a Bitcoin Wiki resource devoted to it.

However, since the Unicode Consortium already accepts Ƀ, it could be an easier path to adoption since there are no standardization roadblocks in the way.

Source: coindesk.com

What Does Mt.Gox CEO Need To Explain

Mt. Gox CEO ordered to US for questioning on missing bitcoins!

The imploded exchange's saga continues as a US bankruptcy judge orders Mark Karpeles to better explain the disappearance of 650,000 bitcoins.

In just a  few months Mt.Gox has gone from being the world's top Bitcoin exchange to shuttered, missing nearly $400 million in bitcoins, and accused of fraud. Now there is this judge from the United States that is ordering the Japan-based exchange's CEO to come to the US and answer a few questions about the Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection it filed in the US last month, according to Reuters. Mt.Gox also filed for bankruptcy in Japan in February.

The Us Bankruptcy judge Stacey Jernigan ordered Mark Karpeles to be in Dallas on April 17. Jernigan wants Karpeles to give more details on wht Mt.Gox shutdown and how hundreds of thousands of customer bitcoins were lots.

Source: coindesk.com

Mt. Gox Frozen Assets

Mt. Gox has now filed for bankruptcy protection both in the United States and in Japan. Additionally, both the company and Karpeles have had their US assets frozen in connection with numerous civil complaints and at lease one criminal probe.

Further, Mt. Gox has so far failed to explain the reason for the discrepancy between the amounts of cash liabilities on its balance sheet and the balance of cash held on banks accounts to be owned by the company. Karpeles testified in a Texas bankruptcy court on Monday, march 10th, that Mt. Gox was the target of a massive and lengthy attack by computer hackers, but admitted that the exchange continued to accept trading orders and collect fee income for weeks after management knew that Fox was technically insolvent.

Source: coindesk.com

How Much Does Mt. Gox Holds

There is a new report about Mt. Gox, the now-bankrupt Japan-based exchange said to have lost 850,000 BTC in customer funds ma actually still be in possession of 200,000 BTC ($118m as of 18:52).

The news published by Yahoo Japan, allegedly comes from the exchange's bankruptcy lawyer who suggests the bitcoins were found on 7th March in a wallet used by MT. Gox prior to June 2011. The 200,000 bitcoin would equate to just over 23% of the entirely funds presumed lost by the company in the wake of widespread theft that is said to have occurred on the exchanges for a period of several years. Given the date, these funds may be separate from that money, however.

Though the release does mention that the funds were found, it does not clarify as to whether the Mt. Gox still has access to any bitcoins inside.

Source: coindesk.com