Mt. Gox, the cryptocurrency exchange that lost 850,000 Bitcoin in investor funds in 2024, will start repaying its defunct users.
Mt. Gox’s rehabilitation trustee will start processing repayments in Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) starting July 2024, according to a written note by the exchange issued on June 24.
“The Rehabilitation Trustee will commence the repayments in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in due course to the cryptocurrency exchanges with which the Rehabilitation Trustee has completed the exchange and confirmation of the required information for implementing the repayments.”
The trustee has once again asked the users for patience, adding that the order of the payments will depend on the respective cryptocurrency exchange:
“We will commence the repayments in the order of the cryptocurrency exchanges with which the Rehabilitation Trustee will complete the exchange and confirmation of the required information. Please wait for a while until the repayments are made.”
More than $9.4 billion worth of Bitcoin is owed to approximately 127,000 creditors of Mt. Gox. These creditors have been waiting for over 10 years to recover their funds following the exchange’s collapse in 2014 due to multiple unnoticed hacks.
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Mt. Gox’s $9.6 billion Bitcoin transfer in May was already part of the repayment process
Mt. Gox’s repayment plans were some of the most followed industry developments, with users waiting to be reimbursed for their lost BTC for over 10 years.
On May 28, Mt. Gox transferred 141,686 BTC worth $9.62 billion into a new wallet, “1Jbez,” from several other cold wallets associated with Mt. Gox. This represents the first onchain movement of funds from the collapsed exchange in over five years.
Shortly after the reports, Mt. Gox rehabilitation trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi has confirmed that the consolidation is part of the exchange’s plans to start repaying creditors, without mentioning when the repayments will start to occur. Kobayashi said in a May 28 announcement:
“The Rehabilitation trustee is preparing to make repayment for the portion of cryptocurrency rehabilitation claims to which cryptocurrency is allocated... As the Rehabilitation trustee is proceeding with the preparation for the above repayments, please wait for a while until the repayments are made.”
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How Mt. Gox collapsed in 2014, tanking BTC price to below $500
Mt. Gox was one of the earliest cryptocurrency exchanges, once facilitating more than 70% of all trades made within the blockchain ecosystem.
Mt. Gox went offline in 2014 after a security breach resulted in a loss of over 850,000 BTC in user funds, worth over $51.9 billion. The current Bitcoin price is above $61,100.
Bitcoin price fell to a local low of $420 in February 2014, shortly after the exchange went offline. Mt. Gox was reportedly hacked six times between 2011 and 2014.
Despite the announcement from Mt. Gox’s rehabilitation trustee, repayments the current deadline could face further delays, as it was set in September 2023 — a month before Mt. Gox was initially scheduled to repay the exchange’s creditors by Oct. 31, 2023.
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