Mt. Gox, the cryptocurrency exchange that suffered a loss of 850,000 Bitcoin in investor funds in 2014, is set to begin repaying its defunct users. According to a statement issued on June 24, the rehabilitation trustee of Mt. Gox will commence processing repayments in Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) starting in July 2024. The trustee has requested patience from users and stated that the order of payments will depend on the respective cryptocurrency exchange.
Approximately 127,000 creditors of Mt. Gox are owed over $9.4 billion worth of Bitcoin. These creditors have been awaiting the recovery of their funds for over a decade since the exchange’s collapse in 2014 due to multiple unnoticed hacks.
In May, as part of the repayment process, Mt. Gox transferred 141,686 BTC worth $9.62 billion into a new wallet called “1Jbez.” This marked the first movement of funds from the collapsed exchange in over five years.
Following these reports, the rehabilitation trustee, Nobuaki Kobayashi, confirmed that the consolidation is part of the exchange’s plans to repay creditors. However, no specific timeline for the repayments was mentioned.
Mt. Gox was once one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, facilitating more than 70% of all trades within the blockchain ecosystem. However, it went offline in 2014 after a security breach resulted in the loss of over 850,000 BTC, valued at over $51.9 billion at the time. The current price of Bitcoin stands above $61,100.
Despite the announcement from the rehabilitation trustee, there is a possibility of further delays to the current repayment deadline. This deadline was initially set in September 2023, a month before Mt. Gox was scheduled to repay its creditors by October 31, 2023.