Cryptocurrency market experienced a sharp decline in the afternoon, with Bitcoin falling below $43,000, resulting in a total liquidation of over $30 million within an hour.
Looking at the news at the same time, the most significant impact on the market trend came from “some users claiming to have received compensation from Mt. Gox.”
According to Odaily’s investigation, in addition to the Reddit user @Free-end, who claimed to have received compensation and has been reported by several media outlets, there were already multiple Japanese-speaking users who claimed to have received compensation on social media as early as December 21, including the founder of Japan’s leading exchange, bitFlyer, Yuzo Kano.
Based on the disclosures made by Mt. Gox in the past about the compensation plan, it is known that Mt. Gox had postponed the deadline for the scheduled compensation (base repayment, early lump-sum repayment, and midterm repayment) from October 31, 2023, to October 31, 2024. However, they also stated that they expected to start compensating creditors at the end of this year for those who had already provided the necessary information to Mt. Gox.
In mid-November, the bankruptcy trustee of Mt. Gox, Nobuaki Kobayashi, informed users via email that they were working towards initiating cash repayments within 2023. However, due to the large number of creditors, the repayment process may continue until 2024. The specific timing of compensation for individual creditors has not been determined, so it is not possible to notify each creditor in advance of the exact time of compensation. However, creditors can check the real-time status in the compensation filing system.
It is worth mentioning that in another document sent to creditors on November 22, Nobuaki Kobayashi also mentioned that he had redeemed 7 billion yen (approximately $46.9 million) from the bankruptcy trust on November 17 for subsequent compensation operations. After this redemption, the remaining assets in the trust were valued at approximately 8.8 billion yen (approximately $58.96 million).
Combining the above information, it can be concluded that Mt. Gox’s compensation for some users this time aligns with the compensation pace previously announced by Nobuaki Kobayashi. The funds most likely come from the 7 billion yen redeemed by Kobayashi from the bankruptcy trust on November 17.
As for whether Mt. Gox is selling off its assets, based on the tracking of Mt. Gox’s disclosed BTC wallets by Unlocks, the most recent on-chain activity of Mt. Gox wallets occurred on July 24, 2023, and only a small amount of BTC (about $1) was transferred, which appears to be more of a check on address control permissions.
In summary, the confirmed information currently available includes the fact that Mt. Gox, after a decade, has indeed initiated compensation for some customers, but the compensation is currently in fiat currency form, and there have been no signs of abnormal activity in the BTC they hold based on on-chain tracking.