The rise and interest behind the virtual currency Bitcoin has been more than interesting. After trading at a huge premium during the Cyprus crisis, now the Mt. Gox exchange located in Japan has said that it is temporarily suspending cash withdrawals of U.S. dollars for the next two weeks. At some point the logic and reason behind a suspension does not matter because when you cannot access your cash you can be hurt regardless of the reason.

The Mt. Gox press release says:

Over the past weeks Mt. Gox has experienced rising volumes of deposits and withdrawals from established and upcoming markets interested in Bitcoin. This increased volume has made it difficult for our bank to process the transactions smoothly and within a timely manner, which has created unnecessary delays for our global customers. This is especially so for those in the United States who are requesting wire transfer withdrawals from their accounts. We are currently making improvements to process withdrawals of United States Dollar (USD) denominations, and as a result are temporarily suspending cash withdrawals of USD for the next two weeks.

Anyone with all their funds tied in Bitcoins might need to have a head-shrinker evaluation. That being said, the reassurance from the exchange is that U.S. dollar deposits and transfers to Mt. Gox will remain unaffected. It said that deposits and withdrawals in other currencies are not affected.

By the way, with all the recent government spying (ergo monitoring) news, did you ever think that perhaps the traffic to, from and around Bitcoin may have been monitored? It would have been easy enough to argue national security concerns over an anonymous virtual currency before recent policy changes.

Below is a compressed graph of the Bitcoin trading values and volume on Mt. Gox from over the past month for your review.

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