Mt. Gox creditors still don’t know when (and if) they will get their money back

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Could the longest-running saga in the digital currency industry be coming to an end this year? This is the question that Mt. Gox creditors have been asking amid signs that the trustee could be paying out billions in claims in the near future.

CoinGeek reported that trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi gave the creditors until September 15 to make or transfer their claims. In the latest notice, he said that he was preparing to make repayments in accordance with the rehabilitation plan that the Tokyo District Court approved in 2021.

However, while this update was well-received, it failed to answer the question that creditors, and the market at large, want to know—when is the trustee repaying the creditors?

Some creditors have played down speculation that they are close to receiving their money.

I am a creditor of Mt. Gox and can confirm we are not close to receiving our #Bitcoin. Most people like me also have no intention of selling it. Don’t believe what influencers on Twitter are telling you.

— Marshall Hayner (@MarshallHayner) August 28, 2022

“The distribution of the said coins is just a matter of time, and this accounts for what has fueled the rumors about the exchange finalizing plans to release this money,” Fringe Finance’s Konstantin Shirokov told one outlet.

“The agitation of the potential beneficiaries is very valid, and so are the concerns of the investors in the broader digital currency ecosystem about what the release and probable sell-off of that massive amount of coins can have on the price of BTC,” he added.

While Mt. Gox lost 850,000 BTC in the 2014 hack, the trustee only has about 150,000 BTC to refund, with an almost equal amount in Bitcoin SV (BSV), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Bitcoin Gold. Kobayashi has previously revealed that he intends to sell off all the BSV and Bitcoin Gold and refund the creditors in fiat.

As the creditors who lost their money to Mt. Gox await their repayment, many have sold off their claims to institutional and retail investors. Fortress Group was the biggest institutional buyer of these claims, buying every BTC claim for a mere $1,300. If it’s repaid today, it will have recorded 1,550% returns on its investment.

Some retail investors also aped in as far back as 2017 and stood to make even more profits than their institutional counterparts.

Follow CoinGeek’s Crypto Crime Cartel series, which delves into the stream of groups from BitMEX to Binance, Bitcoin.com, Blockstream, ShapeShift, Coinbase, Ripple,
Ethereum, FTX and Tether—who have co-opted the digital asset revolution and turned the industry into a minefield for naïve (and even experienced) players in the market.