Many years of waiting and here come the key decisions. The first and most important of these is the closing of the enrollment for compensation for the losses suffered as a result of the biggest collapse ever in the history of the cryptocurrency market. Will 2023 be the year that changes the lives of the exchange’s creditors once and for all?
Mt. Gox enters the next phase of operations
The saga surrounding the Mt. Gox cryptocurrency exchange and its debt is still ongoing. However, new information is emerging that more closely outlines the time caesura for further action. Chief among them is the fact that on April 7, the exchange, through rehabilitation trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, issued a statement saying that the deadline for creditors to provide repayment information – such as an explanation of the payee and type of payment – has passed.
According to the statement, “basic repayment, intermediate repayment and early lump sum repayments” will be made by October 31, 2023, but the deadline may be extended with the approval of the Tokyo District Court.
The trustee also said that “necessary preparations for repayment” will be carried out, including confirming selection for repayment and sharing information with banks, money transfer providers, cryptocurrency exchanges or other trustees involved in the process.
For this reason, the statement reads: “In light of this, it is expected that repayment will not begin until some time has passed.”
The biggest collapse in the history of the cryptocurrency market
In 2014, the Mt. Gox cryptocurrency exchange suffered a major crisis that forced it to shut down. The cause was a hacking attack that resulted in the theft of 850,000 BTC. Despite the FTX crash in November 2022, the collapse of Mt. Gox remains the largest cryptocurrency theft in history.
The process of compensating the victims has been repeatedly delayed. It wasn’t until 2018, nearly four years after the crisis, that a Japanese court approved a compensation plan.
Huge amount of claims
In March 2020, Kobayashi unveiled a new system for the remaining funds, to which creditors could apply by submitting proof of claim, including bank statements, transaction records and identification documents.
The original deadline for submitting claims was October 2020, but this was later moved to December. After all claims were received, the total amount was nearly $16 billion. It is estimated that up to 137,000 BTC will be returned as a result of the compensation.
