By
Chimamanda U. Martha
June 28th, 2024
Mt.Gox has revealed its plans to start reimbursing its users Bitcoin according to an update shared by the platforms’ Rehabilitation Trustee.
After almost ten years of waiting, customers of the defunct crypto exchange Mt.Gox are finally on track to get their Bitcoin (BTC) and other funds back. On Monday, June 24, Mt.Gox announced plans to commence the distribution of assets to its affected users in a 2014 crypto hack. According to the exchange, the repayment is scheduled to take off in the first week of July 2024 after a series of deadlines that were later postponed.
Mt.Gox Repayment and Bitcoin Selling Pressure
The Rehabilitation Trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi wrote on the Mt.Gox website that “the Rehabilitation Trustee has been preparing to make repayments in Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) under the Rehabilitation Plan,” adding that the preparations are finally in place.
Kobayashi reiterated that due diligence and some other safety steps must first be carried out before any payment is made to a customer. The repayment will be done in collaboration with cryptocurrency exchanges that Kobayashi has completed the exchange and confirmation of required information for implementing the repayment.
There are concerns that repayment will exert selling pressure on Bitcoin (BTC), a sentiment that the market is already experiencing. For context, these early investors are very likely to receive assets at a much higher value than their entries before 2013. This could incline them towards selling a part of their holding, according to some traders’ opinions.
Bitcoin price is currently heading further below $65,000. At the time of this writing, the leading cryptocurrency was trading at $62,254.68 with a 3.26% decrease within the last 24 hours. It is not certain how further below or above this level the coin could go. It is worth noting that BTC traded higher than this level in the earlier hours of today but plunged to its current level as soon as Mt.Gox released its statement.
Mt.Gox Fell a Decade Ago
Meanwhile, Mt.Gox was one of the top cryptocurrency exchanges, handling as much as 70% of all Bitcoin transactions in its early years. However, 2014 hit the exchange with its biggest challenges. Hackers attacked the exchange in early 2014, leading to the loss of approximately 740,000 units of Bitcoin. This sum is currently valued at $15 billion. The hack was the biggest of the many attacks on the exchange at the time.
Mt.Gox trustees came up with a repayment plan to reimburse affected users. In March 2023, it was hinted that creditors are expected to start receiving payouts from that month. In addition, the defunct Japanese cryptocurrency exchange set September 30, 2023, as the deadline for the repayments. It didn’t go as planned as by the end of 2023, no Mt.Gox user was reimbursed.
About a month ago, on-chain data showed that more than 141,686 Bitcoins were moved from addresses associated with Mt.Gox to unknown addresses. The transfer which was worth around $9 billion was made in 13 different transactions after five years of inactivity. This latest development could finally mark the end of Mt.Gox’s numerous postponements.