Mt. Gox repayments to start in March 2023—nine years after collapse

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Nine years since the world’s largest BTC exchange at the time collapsed, its creditors are set to receive some of the digital assets and yen they lost this month. The Mt. Gox trustee revealed that the payments are set to start in a week, but some creditors may have to wait up to eight months before receiving their stash.

Mt. Gox went down in early 2014 in which it lost over 800,000 BTC. Since then, its creditors, who consist mostly of the earliest Bitcoin believers, have been fighting to have their assets back, or at least some of them.

As CoinGeek previously reported, trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi gave creditors until March 10, 2023, to register their preferred payment methods, an extension from the previous January 10 deadline.

While the first batch of creditors may receive some of the funds after this deadline, Kobayashi has revealed that the process will continue for months. Some may not receive their funds until at least September.

The Mt. Gox trustee had initially proposed Kraken to be the exchange that handled the payments. However, the exchange withdrew from the process and later ceased offering its services in Japan. Kobayashi then proposed BitGo and Bitstamp as two of the designated exchanges to handle the payouts.

However, those who select Bitstamp may have to wait up to 90 days before the exchange can process their payments.

Mt. Gox still holds 142,000 BTC ($3.18 billion by today’s prices) and an equivalent amount in BCH, Bitcoin SV, and BTG. The trustee has indicated that he intends to sell off the BSV and BTG for fiat to refund users.

Creditors can choose to receive the refunds for BCH and BTC in these digital currencies. Two of the largest creditors, the Mt. Gox Investment Fund and defunct exchange Bitcoinica, have already revealed they will receive their refunds in BTC.

There has been a concern for years that if enough people chose to receive their funds in fiat, the trustee would have to sell off large chunks of the BTC stash, possibly crashing the digital asset’s price.

However, in a recent report, UBS analysts dismissed the claims, saying that it’s unlikely the creditors will dump their BTC into the market at once.

Watch: Someone stole your Bitcoin—here’s how to get them back