Mt. Gox Creditors Start to Receive Payments after 10 Years

After a wait of ten long years, the creditors of the now-defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox are receiving compensation. Several Mt. Gox creditors have taken to social media to confirm receiving payments for their blocked Bitcoin deposits in fiats.

Commencement of Mt. Gox Repayment

Nobuaki Kobayashi, the trustee overseeing the collapsed exchange estate, sent emails to the rehabilitation creditors last month confirming the commencement of payments.

“Due to the large number of rehabilitation creditors who will receive repayment, the varying types of repayments, the different preparation and processing times required to make the repayment, repayments will continue into 2024,” the email, sent in Japanese and English, stated.

The first payment confirmation surfaced on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on December 21, claiming the reception of payment via bank transfer in Japanese yen.

Mt.Goxから弁済されてました！最終弁済を選択したので、中間弁済だと思われます。ちょうど10年かかりましたね。 pic.twitter.com/qDntG5Wssg

Consecutively, several other confirmations emerged from the users on Reddit today. Several reported receiving the payment via bank transfer, while others received it via PayPal. However, there is some confusion about the amount received.

First Collapse of a Crypto Exchange

Mt. Gox was the largest Bitcoin exchange at its peak, handling 70 percent of all global Bitcoin transactions. However, it shuttered services as it could not recover from the impact of its hack. The former CEO of the exchange was additionally convicted in a Japanese court for tampering with exchange records.

The rehabilitation process took years as the trustee delayed it several times. Due to the delays, several companies offered to buy out claims from the original creditors, giving them a partial amount of their original claims.

According to the latest official document, the trustee received the redemption of 7 billion Japanese yen (about $47 million) to fund the repayment claims of the creditors. After this transaction, the trust assets amounted to 8.8 billion yen (about $59 million).

X accounts tracking the developments of Mt. Gox revealed that the known addresses related to the trustee of the collapsed exchange held more than 137,890.9 Bitcoin last month, the market value of which is about $5 billion.