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* * * * * * FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014 ~ VOL. CCLXIII NO. 78 WSJ.com HHHH $2 .00
When Patrick Murck walkedinto a small, drab conferenceroom at the U.S. attorney’s officein Manhattan last month, thefreewheeling world of the virtualcurrency bitcoin got uncomfort-ably real.
The 38-year-old Mr. Murck isgeneral counsel of the BitcoinFoundation, a trade group thatpromotes bitcoin. So he wasn’tsurprised when the group got asubpoena from federal prosecu-tors who wanted to know allabout Mt. Gox, the trading ex-change that collapsed after announcing it lostroughly $500 million of bitcoins, mostly owed tocustomers.
But when he showed up, the room also wasfilled with representatives from the Federal Bureauof Investigation, Internal Revenue Service and
Treasury Department’s FinancialCrimes Enforcement Network.
Investigators peppered himwith questions for two hours, ac-cording to people familiar withthe meeting. The startled Mr.Murck, flanked by his two law-yers, said he was just as baffledas anyone by the mystery of themissing bitcoins, according topeople familiar with the meet-ing.
Bitcoin boosters like Mr.Murck used to spend most oftheir time explaining, extollingand evangelizing about the elec-tronic-only currency, created oncomputers and traded betweenpeople who store their bitcoinsin digital wallets. Those efforts
helped attract venture-capital investors, sootheregulators and lawmakers, and ignite a rocket-shipliftoff in the value of bitcoins.
Now the virtual currency is reeling from astring of crises. Some of its staunchest defenders
PleaseturntopageA10
DJIA 16572.55 g 0.45 0.003% NASDAQ 4237.74 g 0.9% NIKKEI 15071.88 À 0.8% STOXX600 337.25 À 0.1% 10-YR. TREAS. À 4/32 , yield 2.788% OIL $100.29 À $0.67 GOLD $1,284.40 g $6.10 EURO $1.3720 YEN 103.94
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What’sNews
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World-WidenThe soldier accused of theFort Hood shooting was under-going psychiatric treatment,but no evidence has emergedlinking his condition to over-seas deployments. A1, A2n The House voted to changethe health law’s definition of afull-time worker to ease its re-quirements on businesses. A4n Republican officials andtheir allies said they maypress to strike down all lim-its on political donations. A4nA Senate panel voted to de-classify key pieces of a long-awaited report on the CIA’sinterrogation program. A5n Turkey lifted its block onaccess to Twitter, a day afterthe top court ruled that theban was unconstitutional. A7n Syria’s army and other pro-Assad forces stepped up anoffensive against rebel-heldtowns outside Damascus. A14nWestinghouse is in talkswith Ukraine to supply fuelfor nuclear reactors as theU.S. seeks greater leverage. A7nUkraine accused the oustedpresident and his allies of arole in the killing of dozens ofantigovernment protesters. A7n The U.S. secretly set up aTwitter-like program aimedat reaching Cubans. A14n The death toll from theMarch landslide in Washing-ton state has grown to 30. A6
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The ECB opened the doorto extraordinary stimulus
measures it has long resisted,even as central banks elsewhereare winding down theirs. A1nMozilla CEO Eich steppeddown after criticism over hissupport of a ballot measureto ban gay marriage. A1nAnadarko will pay $5.15 bil-lion to settle fraud claims, in arecord environmental settle-ment with the government. B1n U.S. exports dropped inFebruary amid weak over-seas demand. The trade gapwidened to $42.3 billion. A2n Stocks cooled as investorsdigested mixed economic sig-nals. The Dow inched lower. C4n Big U.S. banks are poisedto report weak first-quarterresults as trading revenue andmortgage lending slumped. C1nMakers of consumer staplesare resorting to aggressivediscounts amid scant growth.B1n Liberty Media reached anagreement to sell most of itsstake in Barnes & Noble. B3n Citigroup tapped the CEOof its Citibank unit to helprepair ties with regulators. C1n BofA is in talks to pay over$800 million to settle allega-tions about card “add-ons.” C3n Letterman said he wouldretire when his contract as“Late Show” host expires. B1
Business&Finance
The soldier accused of Wednes-day’s deadly shooting rampage atFort Hood in Texas was undergo-ing treatment for a combinationof depression, anxiety and insom-nia, but no evidence has emergedlinking his mental condition to hisdeployments overseas, military of-ficials said Thursday.
Army Spc. Ivan A. Lopez, whois suspected of killing three andwounding 16 before delivering afatal shot to his own head, saw nocombat during a short stint as atruck driver in Iraq or in a 13-month tour as an observer inEgypt’s Sinai Peninsula, according
to military records and officials.The revelations suggest that
the soldier’s alleged violent out-burst on home soil wasn’t rootedin psychological or physicaltrauma induced by combatabroad. Instead, investigators areleft with the possibility that themotive for Spc. Lopez’s allegedmurder spree was no more intelli-gible than the reasons behind
school shootings or workplacekillings.
“We have very strong evidencethat he had a medical history thatindicates an unstable psychiatricor psychological condition,” Lt.Gen. Mark Milley, commander ofFort Hood, told reporters Thurs-day afternoon. “We believe that tobe the fundamental underlyingcausal factor.”
Investigators have found neitherlinks to political extremists nor evi-dence that Spc. Lopez, 34 yearsold, was targeting certain individu-als on the base, seniormilitary offi-cials said. Military investigators
believe the shooting began after averbal altercation between Spc. Lo-pez and other soldiers.
Scott &White Memorial Hospi-tal in Temple, Texas, and Carl R.Darnall Army Medical Center atFort Hood said Thursday eveningthat seven people remained hospi-talized and nine have been re-leased.
The suspect, who was born inGuayanilla, Puerto Rico, met withArmy medical staff about a month
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By Michael M. Phillipsand Julian E. Barnes inWashington and NathanKoppel in Killeen, Texas
Accused Gunman Was In TreatmentMilitary Officials Say Ivan Lopez Suffered From Anxiety, Depression, but Find No Link to Tours of Duty
Focus on security shortfalls... A2 A familiar firearms store......... A2
Ivan Lopez in a photo provided bythe Puerto Rico National Guard.
Virtual and VolatileDaily trading volume of bitcoins
Source: CoinDesk The Wall Street Journal
100,000
0
20,000
40,000
60,000
80,000
’13 ’142012
CURRENCY IN CRISIS
Bitcoin’s Boosters StruggleTo Shore Up Confidence
Afghanistan Readies for Transition From Karzai
ELECTION BURRO: Poll workers transport ballot boxes in Balkh province for Saturday’s vote to succeed PresidentHamid Karzai, who held the office 12 years. The new leader will be key to talks about the U.S.’s future role.
Mustafa
Najafizada/AssociatedPress
Seven members of a bachelorparty slumped on the couches ofan Indianapolis hotel lobby lastSunday, nursing cans of amber alebefore they headed to the NCAAmen’s basketball regional final be-tween Kentucky and Michigan.
Two days ear-lier, the men hadarrived for a dayof semifinal gamesat Lucas Oil Sta-dium to a soberingsight: “The beertaps were all re-moved,” said amember of theparty. “We werelike, ‘Aww…We’re screwed.’ ”
The men’s basketball FinalFour that begins Saturday in Ar-lington, Texas, is the culminationof the highly popular tourna-ment run by the National Colle-
giate Athletic Association, withan anticipated TV audience ofmillions and a sellout of AT&TStadium.
But thousands of fans who at-tend the games will be forced toswallow a policy that is nearlyunique among major Americansporting events: The NCAA doesn't
sell alcohol to thegeneral public at itschampionships.
The NCAA is soserious about theban that host sitesare even requiredto cover up any ex-isting ads for alco-holic drinks.
The no-boozerule, in place during all roundsof the tournament, endures evenas more colleges and universi-ties, such as Texas, have begunselling beer at athletic events.
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BY RACHEL BACHMAN
LongDry Spell at NCAATournamentHas Tipplers Crying Foul
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Heading Into Final Four, Some Fans FindBooze Ban Hard to Swallow; Plastic Flasks
Flask
A prominent Silicon Valleychief executive stepped downjust days after his appointment,amid a firestorm across the In-ternet that was sparked by em-ployees who complained abouthis opposition to gay marriage.
Brendan Eich resigned fromMozilla, the organization be-hind the Firefox Web browser,after intense criticism over asix-year-old, $1,000 donation hemade in support of a 2008 Cali-fornia ballot initiative to bangay marriage.
The record of that donationappeared on the Internet soonafter Mr. Eich, who inventedJavaScript and helped startMozilla in 1998, was appointedas CEO in late March. After hewas named, some Mozilla em-ployees took to Twitter to callfor his resignation. Mr. Eichthen apologized for causing“pain” and made a commitmentto promote equality for gay andlesbian individuals at Mozilla.
Mr. Eich’s resignationspurred debate on Thursdayover whether his right to hisown political views was effec-tively squelched.
“The mob got their man,”PleaseturntopageA6
BY ALISTAIR BARR
CEO QuitsUnder FireFor StanceOn GayMarriage
FRANKFURT—The EuropeanCentral Bank opened the doorThursday to the kind of extraor-dinary stimulus measures it haslong resisted, even as its coun-terparts in the U.S. and else-where are winding down theirs,reflecting mounting fears aboutthreats to Europe’s economicrecovery.
President Mario Draghi’s rev-elation that the central bankhad discussed negative interestrates and large-scale bond pur-chases—if needed to keep per-sistently low inflation from un-dermining growth—caughtfinancial markets by surprise.
The ECB, as expected, heldits main lending rate at the re-cord low of 0.25%, where it hasbeen since November. But theeuro weakened at the ratchetingup of the rhetoric concerningthe possibility of action as earlyas next month.
Mr. Draghi said officials haddiscussed asset purchases,known as quantitative easing, aswell as setting a negative rate
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BY BRIAN BLACKSTONEAND TODD BUELL
DrasticStimulusOnTableInEurope
By Robin Sidel,Michael J. Casey and
ChristopherM.Matthews
Heard on the Street: Testingthe game plan at the ECB...... C8
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