The Mt.Gox saga continues to draw interest from crypto investors. Back in 2014, the popular BTC exchange was hacked. In fact, this event came as a great shock to the entire crypto world. The BTC exchange eventually shut down as the hackers stole approximately 850,000 BTC. In today’s market, the total worth of the stolen coins amounts to over $16 billion.
During the hack, Mt.Gox was the largest crypto trading ecosystem in the world. However, the hackers took advantage of the lack of quality security protocols. Thus they gained access to the crypto assets of over 24,000 customers. In fact, this is by far the largest incident of its type in the industry. However, now the customers of Mt.Gox can make or transfer a claim till the 15th of September. But the lengthy legal battles have delayed the payouts from rolling out. Recently, there has been a rumour that the payouts might happen soon. The rumours became so intense that the customers of the exchange took to social media to declare it false. If you wish to know more about the payouts, then this article is the perfect stop for you. Keep reading to know more.
The Rumour And The Creditors
A creditor of Mt.Gox, Eric Wall, took to Twitter to cancel out the rumours about the payouts. A rumour recently came up that stated that 137,000 BTC would be dumped into the market soon. However, the creditor stated that the exchange has not yet developed the required infrastructure for the payouts. Therefore, no such payouts are possible in the near future.
In addition, Eric added that the victims of the hack have not yet registered the payment address of the refund. So, a market crash is not imminent. Moreover, the victims believe that the payouts will roll out in small instalments. In fact, Wall also stated that the exchange has not provided any timeline for the payouts. This same view was confirmed by another victim of the hack, Marshall Hayner.
The Redistribution Plan
The appointed rehabilitation trustee for the Mt.Gox rehabilitation plan, Nobuaki Kobayashi made a public announcement in July. He stated that the planning of the repayment is under process. In fact, he and his team published an official document. In that, they stated that the eligible candidates will receive their payment in either BCH or BTC.
This plan first came out two years ago and got approved a year ago. However, they will not pay 850,000 BTC. Rather, it will be paying around 150,000 BTC to the creditors. Konstantin Shirokov, a representative for Fringe Finance stated that the redistribution is just a matter of time. According to him, this very fact has triggered the rumours. According to Shirokov, the payout will not weigh the market down.
Initially, the victims will receive a base payment as per the plan. After that, they can choose to take the remaining payment either in small instalments or in a lump sum payment.
The Stolen Mt.Gox BTC Moved
An interesting thing came to notice recently. Two bitcoin addresses from 2013, moved about 10,000 BTC to various accounts. The clustering and heuristic techniques confirmed that the moved BTC has a connection to the Mt.Gox hack. In fact, a data engineer from OXT Research stated that the moved coins have not been sourced from Kraken. The data engineer also added that these coins are somehow connected to Mt.Gox. Moreover, there is a possibility that it is controlled by Jeb McCaleb.
In fact, shortly after this, 5,000 BTC connected to the defunct exchange again moved to some third-party accounts. BTCparser traced this movement.
Concluding Lines
The Mt.Gox hack took place about a decade ago. The stolen BTC thus lay dormant for a decade. Therefore, a sudden movement of around $20,000 is really striking. However, we should watch for the action that the exchange takes after the deadline of 15th September is over.
Also read: Currently, FBI Is Trying To Find Bitcoin Wallet Information Of Ransomware Attackers
