Asset managers of the Mt.Gox exchange again pushed back the deadlines for payment of refunds and registration of creditors. The deadline for registering new applications has been moved from March 10 to April 6, 2023, and the deadline for lump sum early payments has been moved from September 30 to October 31, according to message exchanges, writes RBC Crypto.
10 years ago, Mt.Gox was one of the largest crypto exchanges, at its peak it accounted for 70% of bitcoin transactions. From 2011 to 2014, the site was repeatedly subjected to hacker attacks and technical failures. At the beginning of 2014, users began to experience problems with the withdrawal of funds, in early February of the same year, the platform completely stopped withdrawal operations, announcing the loss of 850 thousand bitcoins (about $500 million at that time). In April 2014, the exchange began the process of bankruptcy, which is still ongoing.
The exchange has repeatedly stated its desire to start paying out affected investors and resume operations. In October 2021, Mt.Gox asset manager Nobuyaki Kobayashi approved a compensation plan, which was accepted by former site users.
Under the Kobayashi plan, creditors can receive a lump sum payment of 90% of the claim ahead of schedule, without waiting for the completion of bankruptcy proceedings. Another option involves waiting for the end of the process in the hope of receiving a large amount.
Previously, the application deadline was set for the beginning of this year, but in January it was moved to March. At the same time, the deadline for lump-sum payments was moved from 31 July to 30 September.
In a message dated March 9 this year, the Mt.Gox managers warned that creditors who do not complete the paperwork by the new deadline (April 6) will not be able to receive payments. In some cases, they will need to bring additional documents to the main office of the exchange. The deadline for early refunds has also been extended by another month, from September 30 to October 31, 2023.
The two largest creditors of Mt.Gox are the New Zealand crypto exchange Bitcoinica, which ceased operations in 2012, and the investment fund MtGox Investment Funds (MGIF), whose claims amount to about 20% of all claims to Mt.Gox, chose lump-sum early payment of 90% of funds blocked in 2014 in bitcoins.
If these two lenders had opted to receive payments in fiat currencies, Kobayashi would likely have been forced to sell off a significant amount of bitcoin in order to satisfy all the lenders’ requests for fiat currency refunds. As of July 2022, the exchange manager had approximately 142,000 BTC ($3.08 billion at the March 9 exchange rate) at its disposal.
The agreement by the two largest creditors to receive payouts in bitcoin came as a relief to those who worried that the spate of concurrent liquidations linked to the Mt.Gox bankruptcy could lower the price of bitcoin. In addition, by message Bloomberg, the MGIF investment fund does not plan to sell the assets that, according to the plan, it should receive this fall. The exact amount is unknown, but unnamed sources of the publication specified that 70% of the funds received by the fund will be in bitcoins, and 30% in fiat currency.
Source: Cryptocurrency
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