Mt. Gox, a Japanese bitcoin exchange that went bankrupt a decade ago following a major hack, is finally set to repay its creditors. These creditors are in for a significant payday, as the company will start distributing about $9 billion worth of bitcoin, rewarding them for their patience over the years.
In 2011, Mt. Gox lost up to 950,000 bitcoins in a hack, a significant amount considering bitcoin’s value was much lower back then. Around 140,000 of those bitcoins were later recovered. Today, these recovered bitcoins are worth approximately $9 billion, a massive increase from their original value.
According to a report by CNBC, one of the claimants is Gregory Greene from US, who filed a class action lawsuit against Mt. Gox and its former CEO shortly after the exchange declared bankruptcy in February 2014. Greene’s account, which contained $25,000 worth of bitcoin when the exchange froze, is now potentially worth around $2.5 million due to bitcoin’s skyrocketing value. However, it’s still unclear how much he and other creditors will receive when payouts start in July.
What was Mt. Gox?
Mt. Gox, an acronym for “Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange,” was once the largest bitcoin exchange in the world, handling around 80 per cent of all global dollar trades for bitcoin at its peak. The platform shut down in February 2014 after a series of heists, which Mt. Gox attributed to a bug in bitcoin’s framework. This bug allowed hackers to move bitcoins out of user accounts while displaying incomplete transaction messages.
The report suggests that the payouts will be in a mix of bitcoin and bitcoin cash, an early offshoot of the original cryptocurrency.
Many top claimants are prominent figures in the bitcoin world, including early bitcoin investor Roger Ver, Blockstream co-founders Adam Back and Greg Maxwell, and Bruce Fenton, former executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation.
