Former world’s biggest Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has been put in administration by a Japanese court.

Mt. Gox announced in February that hackers had stolen hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins from it, worth about $500 million.

It later said that it had found a substantial number of the Bitcoins and had hoped to find a way to continue as a business and pay back customers.

But the court dismissed this plan and appointed an administrator.

In a statement on Mt. Gox’s website the administrator said that bankruptcy proceedings were likely to follow.

Mt. Gox has been put in administration by a Japanese court

This would involve Mt. Gox customers being asked to make any claims through the court, although the administrator pointed out that there was no time frame for this process at the moment.

Customers can continue to check the balance of any Bitcoins they have with Mt. Gox but are warned that this is not necessarily the amount they would receive as the result of a claim.

Mt. Gox said at the time it went offline that the Bitcoins had been stolen from its system by hackers who exploited a loophole in the software that oversaw the Bitcoin system. The administrator said that it plans to investigate the missing Bitcoins as part of its role.

The founder of Mt. Gox, Mark Karpeles, refused a request by a US court to attend a hearing this week to answer questions about the collapse of the exchange. He has not been charged with any crime.

Bitcoin is currently trading for around $500, down from a high of more than $1,100 last year.

Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has given up plans to rebuild under bankruptcy protection and has asked a Tokyo court to allow it to be liquidated, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

The source cited the complexity of the procedure and the lack of realistic rehabilitation plans for the Tokyo-based exchange as reasons for the move, the newspaper said.

Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has given up plans to rebuild under bankruptcy protection and has asked a Tokyo court to allow it to be liquidated (photo Getty Images)

Mt. Gox, once the world’s biggest Bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan last month, saying it may have lost some 850,000 Bitcoins – worth around $454 million at today’s rates – due to hacking into its computer system. It has since said it found 200,000 of those Bitcoins.

Mt. Gox’s lawyers declined to comment on the matter.

Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles won’t travel to the US to answer questions about the Bitcoin exchange’s US bankruptcy case, the company’s lawyers told a federal judge this week.