Creditors of the long-defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox have reportedly started to receive fiat repayments for their Bitcoin, which had been trapped on the exchange since February 2014, according to numerous reports across social media.
On Dec. 26, several posts from the Reddit page r/mtgoxinsolvency suggestethat Mt. Gox had been sending Japanese Yen-denominated repayments to users via PayPal — nearly ten years after the funds had become locked on the exchange on Feb. 24, 2014.
"I just got paid," claimed Reddit user Free-end254, attaching a screenshot of the email that contained the PayPal receipt of payment.
"I just got money!" wrote another Reddit user, adding they initially believed the email to be some kind of phishing scam, before claiming that an actual payment had landed in their PayPal account.
Another user noted that only part of their 0.125 Bitcoin claim had been repaid, receiving a total of 30,283 yen — worth $200 at the current exchange rate — and was still missing an approximate payment of $748.
Cointelegraph also received screenshots of the supposed repayments from one Mt. Gox creditor who asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons.
Repayments to creditors are set to be paid out in several tranches, including the base repayment, the early lump-sum repayment, and the intermediate repayment.
Mt. Gox assigns each claim "voting rights" which helps standardize the amount between fiat and crypto creditors in yen. The yen amount of each claim is determined by multiplying the price of creditors' Bitcoin holdings by a later spot price to ensure they are paid out fairly for the assets that were left stuck on the exchange in 2014.
One of the first instances of the new Mt. Gox repayments surfaced on Dec. 21, when a pseudonymous Japanese X (formerly Twitter) user said they had received their Mt. Gox claims through bank transfer, which was credited to their account as Japanese Yen.
Mt.Goxから弁済されてました！
— びりある#全財産DeFi@ (@visvirial) December 21, 2023
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
It comes only a month after Nobuaki Kobayashi, the trustee overseeing the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange’s estate began sending out emails to rehabilitation creditors regarding the commencement of repayments on Nov. 21.
The Kobayashi email said that the trustee planned to start the first repayments to creditors in cash in 2023, adding that he expects to continue the repayments in 2024. Kobayashi did not provide the specific timing of repayments to individual rehabilitation creditors.
Two months earlier on Sept. 21, the Mt. Gox Trustee pushed back the repayment deadline from Oct. 31, 2023, to the same date in 2024 — however, noted that for rehabilitation creditors who had already provided the necessary information, some repayments could be made "as early as the end of this year."
Cointelegraph contacted Mt. Gox for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Update (Dec. 26, 11:09pm UTC): This article has been updated to include information shared by of repayments fan anonymous Mt Gox creditor.
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