Mt. Gox, the bankrupt Japanese crypto exchange, will repay creditors’ Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash assets starting July 2024. Following the announcement, the market sold off, with Bitcoin dipping below $61,000.
In a June 24 statement, the exchange’s Rehabilitation Trustee, Nobuaki Kobayashi, wrote:
“The Rehabilitation Trustee will commence the repayments in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in due course to the cryptocurrency exchanges with which the Rehabilitation Trustee has completed the exchange and confirmation of the required information for implementing the repayments.”
The firm is set to refund 142,000 BTC and 143,000 BCH to creditors, amounting to over $8 billion.
Further, the trustee assured that the defunct exchange had “taken time to ensure safe and reliable repayment to creditors, including technical remedies for safe repayments, compliance with financial regulations in each country, and discussion of repayment arrangements with the cryptocurrency exchanges.”
Consequently, it urged users of the failed crypto platform to “please wait for a while until the repayments are made.”
This news is a promising development for creditors of the defunct Mt. Gox exchange, who have waited nearly a decade for their assets. In 2014, Mt. Gox suffered a massive hack resulting in the loss of 850,000 Bitcoin—valued at over $57 billion today. Following the hack, Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy and began rehabilitation proceedings in 2018 to compensate creditors.
Since then, the process has been marred by legal issues, creating prolonged uncertainty for users about the recovery of their funds.
However, things began to change last year after the firm issued some repayments, with reports indicating that certain creditors received double payments.
Meanwhile, speculations about the Bitcoin repayment began last month after crypto community members observed the movement of assets held by the Rehabilitation Trustee for the first time in five years. At the time, the trustee debunked rumors that it was divesting its substantial Bitcoin holdings of around 140,000 BTC, valued at $9 billion. Instead, it assured that the transactions were part of its preparations to repay creditors.
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