Mt. Gox repayment registrations close: Here’s what’s next

The deadline for repayment registration for those affected by the Mt. Gox hack has closed, with the trustee releasing a statement on the next steps in the process.

The saga of the Mt. Gox cryptocurrency exchange and the repayment of its creditors continues, as the company released a new statement as to what to expect now that its registration window has closed.

On April 7, the former exchange released a statement from its rehabilitation trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi saying the deadline for creditors to provide their repayment information — clarification of payee and payment type — has passed.

It said that “base repayment, intermediate repayment and early lump-sum repayments” will be carried out until Oct. 31, 2023. However, this final deadline “might be extended with the permission of the Tokyo District Court.”

The note also said that the trustee would carry out the “necessary preparations” to make the repayments, including confirmation of the selections for repayment and sharing the information with banks, fund transfer providers, cryptocurrency exchanges or any other custodian involved in the repayment.

For this reason, the note read: “In light of this, it is expected to take some time before the repayment is commenced.”

The initial demise of the exchange happened in 2014 when it was forced to shut down after a hack amounting to the loss of 850,000 Bitcoin (BTC). Despite the FTX catastrophe in November 2022, Mt. Gox’s demise remains the greatest crypto robbery in history.

There have been continuous delays surrounding the repayment of funds to those affected. In 2018, a Japanese court finally approved a compensation plan.

In March 2020, Kobayashi announced a new system for the remaining funds to be claimed by creditors through proof of claim via bank statements, transaction records and identification documents.

The deadline for submitting claims was set for October 2020, which was subsequently pushed back to December. After all claims were received, the amount totaled nearly $16 billion, more than was available for repayments.

In February 2023, Mt. Gox Investment Fund, the largest creditor, decided to go for the option of an early payout in BTC for 90% of what is owed instead of waiting longer for a larger payment.

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