It’s hard to believe that after nearly seven years of waiting, there are still many traders and individuals who have not garnered what’s rightfully theirs from Mt. Gox, the now defunct cryptocurrency trading platform in Japan.
Mt. Gox Victims Can Now Get Their Money
However, after all this time, it looks like many creditors are finally going to get access to the funds that have been locked up for so long following the company’s bankruptcy filing.
Mt. Gox is widely considered one of the worst disasters in cryptocurrency history. The trading exchange experienced a massive theft that saw more than $400 million in BTC units disappear overnight. There was much speculation as to what may have caused the disappearance and who was behind it. There was even talk of it being an inside job, and the company’s founder Mark Karpeles ultimately did a year behind bars in Japan.
But in the middle of all this were those who were unjustly victimized by the theft. Now, years later, they are finally getting their money back. The path to victory was paved with the help of three separate entities: Coin Lab Inc., the trustee of the Mt. Gox bankruptcy Nobuaki Kobayashi, and MGIFLP, a division of Fortress Investment Group, LLC.
The agreement allows all creditors affected by the disaster to have immediate access to around 90 percent of the total bitcoin locked up due to the company’s bankruptcy. They are not obligated to take any of the money right away, as many of them are involved with direct lawsuits against Mt. Gox over what occurred in 2014. Should they decide to wait for settlements or lawsuits to take form, they can opt out of any early payments.
Either way, it looks like justice is finally being delivered in small spurts to those who have gone through losses that few of us can ever truly comprehend. Tim Draper – a venture capitalist and an initial investor with Coin Lab – expressed his enthusiasm over the situation in a recent statement, commenting:
I am thrilled that people are finally getting paid by Mt. Gox. As Mt. Gox’s creditors are some of the earliest believers in cryptocurrency, I look forward to getting my bitcoin as do the tens of thousands of people that have claims.
A Terrible Tragedy
It is estimated that as many as 850,000 bitcoin units vanished from the exchange’s storage vaults that fateful day in February 2014. In addition, bitcoin was only trading for about $489 at the time. Now that the currency has shot past $36,000, it’s clear that the earliest investors stood to gain quite a bit if they had been given a chance to “hold” and let their digital currency remain in place.
It’s unclear at the time of writing if affected creditors will be entitled to interest payments.
