Bankrupt Mt. Gox’s Largest Creditor Plans to Keep Returned Bitcoin

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bankrupt-mt-gox-largest-creditor-172942987.html

The largest creditor of the failed Mt. Gox crypto exchange intends to hold rather than sell the Bitcoin that’s due to be disbursed to it this year.

The Mt Gox Investment Fund — which bought claims against the bankrupt digital-asset platform — doesn’t plan to sell the tokens that are scheduled to be returned in September, according to a person familiar with the fund’s thinking, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

The fund chose an early payout in September instead of waiting for all the litigation over the collapsed exchange to be resolved. It will get 90% of what’s collectible in a ratio of roughly 70% Bitcoin and 30% cash, the person said. They declined to specify the amount of Bitcoin the fund expects to receive.

Mt. Gox creditors have until March 10 to decide whether to chose the September payout or to wait longer to recover a higher percentage of their claims. The Tokyo-based platform was once the biggest Bitcoin exchange, but it lost some customer assets and then went bankrupt in 2014.

The bankruptcy trustee held a trove of 141,686 Bitcoin as well as cash and Bitcoin Cash coins as of September 2019, according to prior documents. At current prices, that Bitcoin is worth about $3.1 billion.

Crypto investors have long fretted about the implications if many of the tokens are sold as claims are resolved. Bitcoin this year has partially rebounded from a rout but the revival is fizzling, leaving the world’s largest digital asset about $47,000 off a record of almost $69,000 set in 2021.