Victims of the bankrupt crypto exchange Mt. Gox have agreed on a settlement offer. With this, victims can get some of their lost bitcoins back, but how much money is involved is still unknown.
A vast majority of the affiliated victims have agreed to a settlement proposal from the bankruptcy trustee that the bankruptcy of Mt. Gox handles. The Tokyo court has now approved the vote on the settlement proposal, although it will only be declared binding in a month.
How many victims get back depends on several things. The settlement was and is complex because, among other things, the case is unique, a large number of parties are involved and it has been running for years with several different claims. In addition, it concerns bitcoin, whose value has increased enormously at the time of bankruptcy, the filing of the claims and the time of the settlement.
Under the plan, about 90 percent of the slightly more than 141,000 bitcoins under the trustee’s control could be distributed to victims. That’s about a fifth of the total number of bitcoins that Mt. Gox owned at the time. Victims can get back some of the bitcoins they had stored with the exchange during the bankruptcy, but how much that is depends on the option they voted for.
Earlier, before the outcome of the vote, bitcoin specialist WizSec described there were established and undisclosed claims, with CoinLab’s claims in fiat money still under dispute. He also described that preferred creditors with claims in fiat money could look forward to repayment of the full claim. That value is then based on the value at the time of the bankruptcy, supplemented by compensation. What the other victims could see from their claim, they were able to calculate with a calculator from WizSec, depending on some options that were available with regard to the proposal.
The case revolves around the bankruptcy of Mt. Gox in 2014, which was the largest cryptocurrency trader at the time. At least 650,000 bitcoins were lost during the bankruptcy. At that time they had a value of about 1000 euros each. The trustee managed to recover approximately 200,000 coins from this. Its current value is now almost ten billion euros, but that is not the entire amount that is currently being distributed. Since the bankruptcy of Mt. Gox, the trustee has already converted some of the bitcoin into fiat money, in order to secure the previously agreed payout of approximately $400 per bitcoin.
Because the price of the bitcoin has subsequently taken off, it has been agreed to distribute the remaining bitcoin pro rata among the creditors. After some creditors, including Coinlab, filed lawsuits against the bankruptcy trustee, the settlement was seriously delayed.
An agreement has now been reached with Coinlab and creditors can choose not to await the outcome of the lawsuit, but instead opt for a guaranteed payout of 21 percent of the bitcoin they currently have on the platform. had stood. It was also possible to choose to wait for the lawsuits, after which the payment could be marginally higher. The bankruptcy trustee expects that the payments can be made fairly soon after the settlement proposal becomes binding, although an exact date is not mentioned.
Update, 17:00: Article supplemented and several changes made, partly on the basis of several comments.