One of the most seismic hacks in Bitcoin history was Mt. Gox, the largest exchange at the time. Now a Japanese court rules that the exchange’s bankruptcy is over, opening the door for victim payouts.
There have been quite a few hacks of Bitcoin exchanges over the years, but none have had the impact like the Mt. Gox hack. The exchange was once the largest one in the world, but it collapsed after 850,000 bitcoins were stolen.
Pillage and Plunder
At the time, the coins were worth $473 million. Today, they’re worth a jaw-dropping $5.2 billion. However, all was not lost as 200,000 bitcoins were found and then frozen as bankruptcy proceedings began.
This, naturally, left many customers holding the bag, but now there’s a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. The Tokyo District Court put a stop to the bankruptcy procedure, beginning a process called civil rehabilitation. This essentially means that the exchange’s assets of coins (Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash) can be handed out to debtors and previous customers.
Overall, there are roughly 170,000 coins with a total market value of about $1.2 billion.
Getting Fair Market Value
The best feature of this new development is that those seeking to regain a portion of their stolen bitcoins will now get the current market value. The bankruptcy plan that was previously in effect allowed the exchange’s trustee to sell off coins and then reimburse people at the price of Bitcoin back when the hack occurred, which was a paltry $483. This meant that Mt. Gox shareholders could have reaped a huge financial windfall as the victims were essentially screwed over.
The former CEO of Mt. Gox, Mark Karpelès, said he was happy with the court’s decision. (It should be noted that Karpelès is currently on trial in Tokyo for embezzlement.) He told Fortune:
I hope entering civil rehabilitation will be for the best of everyone. As I said previously I am not expecting any kind of profit from this and only hope everyone will be repaid as much as possible as soon as possible. Creditors worked hard for the purpose of seeing civil rehabilitation happen and I will continue to help as much as I can.
Other big winners are those who bought claims by ex-customers of Mt. Gox who thought they would never see a dime of their money ever again. However, the payouts will take some time to happen. The trustee has until February 14th, 2019, to come up with a plan on how to handle the payouts, and creditors will need to file their claims. Overall, creditors might not see their payments until the middle or even the end of next year.
Were you impacted by the Mt. Gox hack? If so, will you be filing a claim? Let us know in the comments below.
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