Mt Gox, which was one of the major Bitcoin exchanges, has shut down due to large-scale robbery and DDoS attacks.

Right now, when you go to the Japan-based company’s site, you only get a message saying that they have “close[d] all transactions for the time being in order to protect the site and our users,” and that they will be “closely monitoring the situation.”

Despite being worth over a thousand dollars a coin at one point, the price of Bitcoins have been falling steadily. At this time one Bitcoin is worth $509.1, still a decent amount, but it is still roughly a 50% decline in only a few months. It also hasn’t helped that many Bitcoin exchanges have been the target of theft and recent DDoS attacks.

Regarding the problems Mt Gox has had, a number of Bitcoin sites, including BitStamp.net, BTC China, and Kraken, have released a joint statement.

“This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt.Gox was the result of one company’s actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of bitcoin and the digital currency industry,” they say in the statement.

“There are hundreds of trustworthy and responsible companies involved in bitcoin,” the statement adds. “These companies will continue to build the future of money by making bitcoin more secure and easy to use for consumers and merchants. As with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be weeded out, and that is what we are seeing today.”

While the entity known as Mt Gox will be shutting down, it seems that it will be renamed as Gox, and future operations will be under a new CEO and executives.

[via Wired, image via antanacoins’ flick]