X
Finance

Mt. Gox trustee wraps up claim reviews, millions in refunds available

Former investors may not be happy with the payouts on offer.
Written by Charlie Osborne, Contributing Writer

Mt. Gox's trustee has finished reviewing the thousands of claims made against the bankrupt company and will award $91 million in compensation, far below the amount claimed by angry former investors.

mt-gox-file-claim.jpg

The status of every claim made against the now defunct Bitcoin trading post has been determined, and the status of each claim -- whether valid or void -- has been issued.

Varying amounts of compensation are now destined to land in the bank accounts of former investors on the Bitcoin exchange, but there are not enough Bitcoin assets to fully refund past users.

According to digital asset exchange Kraken, trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi said at a creditor's meeting in Tokyo this week that 24,750 creditors have filed claims to date. The amount claimed amounted to $2,411,412,137,427 in total losses.

However, the total amount of Bitcoin still held by Mt. Gox amounts to just over $91 million at today's price of approximately $450, which will be distributed to genuine claimants.

Kraken, which oversees what is left of the collapsed exchange, also noted that one claim made by an individual for 260 trillion yen will likely be denied.

Many investors of the once-dominant Bitcoin exchange have been left without direction since Mt. Gox closed its doors without warning in 2014. Ran by former chief Mark Karpeles, Mt. Gox originally claimed that a cyberattack had led to the theft of 650,000 Bitcoin, but the story began to unravel when 200,000 "misplaced" Bitcoin were discovered in an old wallet.

Suspicions of fraud and embezzlement are still hanging over the CEO, who is being investigated in Japan by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.

However, you will soon be able to check the status of your claim on the Mt. Gox website to see if you are eligible for a return on any Bitcoin investment lost through the trading post's closure.

Kobayashi commented:

"My office and my partners on the Kraken team worldwide are proud to report outstanding news to thousands of Mt. Gox creditors. During our thorough bankruptcy investigation, we have carefully reviewed over 24,000 individual claims and made individual determinations on their validity.

While the detailed schedule will inevitably be affected by each creditor's response, we wish to proceed to the distribution process as soon as possible."

In total, $91 million is a fraction of the funds that were lost, but this amount in Bitcoin is the only asset the company held before Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy in both the US and Japan.

After the two-year saga, some investors may just be happy to gain anything back at all.

In related news, a class-action lawsuit filed against Mt. Gox on behalf of Canadian investors recently collapsed and will be dismissed. Claimants wanted to secure $500 million in compensation for the loss of their savings, but Canadian law could have meant the investors would have ended up bankrupt themselves if they had lost the case.

Top tips to stay safe on public Wi-Fi networks

Read on: Top picks

Editorial standards