After an excruciating decade-long wait, the creditors of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange, Mt. Gox, are finally beginning to receive their long-awaited compensation.
Numerous Mt. Gox creditors have taken to various social media platforms to share their joy in confirming the receipt of payments for their previously inaccessible Bitcoin deposits, now converted into fiat currencies.
The commencement of the Mt. Gox repayment process was officially announced by Nobuaki Kobayashi, the trustee appointed to oversee the estate of the collapsed exchange.
Kobayashi sent out emails to rehabilitation creditors in the previous month, notifying them of the initiation of the compensation phase.
In the email, which was issued in both Japanese and English, it was disclosed, “Due to the large number of rehabilitation creditors who will receive repayment, the varying types of repayments, the different preparation and processing times required to make the repayment, repayments will continue into 2024.”
The first confirmed payment was shared on December 21st via the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), with the recipient announcing the receipt of funds through a bank transfer in Japanese yen.
Subsequently, several others on Reddit reported similar confirmations of payment. Some received their funds via bank transfers, while others opted for PayPal, though there was some confusion regarding the amounts received.
At its zenith, Mt. Gox stood as the largest Bitcoin exchange globally, managing approximately 70 percent of all Bitcoin transactions worldwide.
However, its operations were abruptly halted due to a devastating hack, from which it could not recover.
In addition to this, the former CEO of the exchange faced legal repercussions in a Japanese court for tampering with exchange records.
The rehabilitation process endured prolonged delays, prompting several companies to offer buyouts of claims from the original creditors, providing them with partial settlements.
According to the most recent official document, the trustee acquired 7 billion Japanese yen (approximately $47 million) in redemption to facilitate the repayment of creditors’ claims.
Following this transaction, the total trust assets stood at 8.8 billion yen (about $59 million).
Monitoring accounts focused on Mt. Gox’s developments disclosed that addresses associated with the trustee of the collapsed exchange held more than 137,890.9 Bitcoin last month, with an estimated market value of approximately $5 billion.