The cryptocurrency market experienced a significant shock, especially in 2022, with the bankruptcies of major companies such as Terra Luna and the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. These events led to the drafting of important regulations for the crypto industry. However, these bankruptcy processes were not the first insolvency news in the crypto market. The cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, which had declared bankruptcy a long time ago, began sending assets held on the exchange to users since February 2014.
Notable Allegations Regarding Mt. Gox
According to posts shared on social media, creditors of the Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, which went bankrupt in 2014, have started receiving repayments in fiat currency for Bitcoin assets held since February 2014. A few posts on Reddit’s r/mtgoxinsolvency page claimed that Mt. Gox started sending repayments in Japanese Yen via PayPal to users, approximately ten years after the assets were locked in the exchange on February 24, 2014.
This development that came to the agenda has not yet been confirmed by the competent authorities. A Reddit user named “Free-end254” added a screenshot of the email containing the PayPal payment receipt to the post, saying, “I just received a payment.”
Another Reddit user who posted “I just received money!” shared that they initially believed the email was some kind of phishing scam, but later confirmed that a real payment was made to their PayPal account.
How Will the Process Work for Mt. Gox Creditors?
In the process under consideration, one of the first examples of Mt. Gox repayments emerged on December 21st, when a Japanese user with the pseudonym X claimed to have received Mt. Gox claims via bank transfer, which was deposited into their account in Japanese Yen. This came just one month after the trustee overseeing the transactions of the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange, Nobuaki Kobayashi, began sending emails to exchange creditors about the start of repayments on November 21st.
In the email addressed by Kobayashi, the trustee mentioned plans to start the first repayments to creditors in cash in 2023 and expected to continue repayments in 2024. Kobayashi did not specify an exact date for the repayments to individual exchange creditors. Regarding this matter, we had informed our readers in the news we published on October 21 that Mt. Gox had postponed these repayment plans from October 31, 2023, to October 31, 2024.
