Corporate customers tangled up in the aftermath of Mt. Gox’s historic hack can finally file for reparations.
The now-defunct Japanese bitcoin exchange opened up its claim filing system to corporate users this Wednesday, September 12, 2018. Previously, the system was open only to non-corporate individuals as of August 23, 2018, but with today’s announcement, any entity that lost funds to the exchange can now file for rehabilitation claims.
Creditors have until October 22, 2018, to file for rehabilitation, after which point they will be disenfranchised.
Established by Stellar co-founder Jed McCaleb but later acquired by Mark Karpelès, Mt. Gox collapsed in February of 2014 after an alleged hack. In the ensuing fallout, the exchange, which hosted the vast majority of the world’s cryptocurrency trading, was rendered illiquid, as malicious actors absconded with some 850,000 BTC, worth roughly $450 million at the time. The hack was the most devastating in industry history until Coincheck, another Japanese exchange, lost a staggering $530 million in January of 2018.
Given its magnitude, the aftermath of Mt. Gox’s collapse has hung on to the space’s community like an albatross. Even this year, community members theorized that market slumps were caused by Mt. Gox’s legal trustee, Tokyo-based attorney Nobuaki Kobayashi, selling bitcoin from the exchange’s estate to reimburse creditors. Kobayashi, who has overseen the civil rehabilitation process and who authored today’s statement, has since ended the sell-offs, offering creditors restitution in bitcoin and bitcoin cash under an updated rehabilitation plan, instead.
Originally filing for bankruptcy in 2014, the exchange’s case was stayed after a Tokyo District Court approved a petition to have it begin the civil rehabilitation process in June of 2018. In opening corporations to the claims filing process, the exchange is one step closer to putting its debts to rest after courts first permitted Mt. Gox users to file bankruptcy claims in April of 2015.