Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox is most well-known today for its infamous halting of operations and bankruptcy back in February of 2014, a multi-million dollar loss for the Bitcoin community of the time. Since 2014, and after many lawsuits, Mt. Gox has managed to recover a very worthwhile amount of Bitcoins and is now sending an amount valued at $9 billion divided across Mt. Gox’s former account holders [h/t CNBC].
The original Mt. Gox bitcoin heist meant that there were “up to 950,000 Bitcoin” lost, and reportedly 140,000 of those recovered Bitcoin are what’s being returned to Mt. Gox’s former customers.
While not every lost Bitcoin has been recovered, far from it, the exponential increase in Bitcoin’s value since February 2014 means that each recovered Bitcoin is 10,000% more valuable than it was when it was lost. As John Glover of crypto lending firm Ledn said to CNBC, “Many will clearly cash out and enjoy the fact that having their assets stuck in the Mt. Gox bankruptcy was the best investment they ever made.”
Depending on the party receiving the payout and how much they’re receiving, though, the story may change. According to Luke Nolan of the CoinShares research firm quoted by CNBC, many Mt. Gox creditors opting for in-kind reimbursement (in Bitcoin) are doing so because of tax implications. JPMorgan, quoted by CNBC, suspects similar reasoning from creditors, though JPM also suspects that they are taking in-kind reimbursement “because they think liquidating now would void potential further price gains in the future”.
The previously-quoted John Glover of Ledn also speculated on the matter that “Those in jurisdictions with capital gains tax may elect to hold their positions to avoid this huge tax bill and instead use their Bitcoin as collateral to borrow dollars, thus monetizing the Bitcoin without having to sell it.”
In any case, it seems like those who held out this long waiting for their cryptocurrency instead of selling their bankruptcy claims to prior high offers are set to be highly rewarded by huge gains on their old, returned crypto. However, since not all of that crypto has been recovered, it’s unclear exactly how much everyone involved stands to gain versus how much they invested — though considering Bitcoin’s pricing then compared to now, it would seem they will at least be made whole, if not much better off than before.
