Mt Gox customers may have something to look forward to in the coming days. Some of the investors in the now-defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox may soon be receiving at least a part of their investments back. A recent announcement made by Kraken earlier today shows that the verification process for all the claims made so far by about 25,750 creditors may have been complete.
According to the press release, the total claims received so far exceed 263, 519,268303,371 Japanese yen, which is equivalent to approximately 2,411,412,137,427 United States dollars. The largest claim of about 260,000,000,000,000 Japanese yen by a single individual is expected to be declined by the authorities. The report calculates the total number of bitcoins in possession of Mt Gox at the time of its demise to be somewhere around 202,185 BTCs which will be in today’s current value is a bit short of 100 million at $91,185,435 in USD. The court-appointed trustee, Nobuaki Kobayashi, during the Creditor’s Meeting held in Tokyo, has declared that all the claims received so far have been reviewed and the status of these claims will be available to the claimants in the coming days. Creditors will soon be able to check the status of their claims on Mt Gox website at the following like – claims.mtgox.com
The press release quotes Nobuaki Kobayashi saying:
“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. In the near future, claimants will be able to browse the Mt Gox claims website to confirm their status. 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.”
Kraken’s Effort in Mt Gox Investigation
Kraken, the company owned by Payward Group which has been closely involved in the investigation into Mt Gox along with the Japanese law enforcement authorities will be distributing the bitcoins stored with the exchange at the time of its collapse. However, Kraken will not be providing information about the status of claims to the creditors. They will have to check the status only on Mt Gox website itself.
Kraken has been instrumental in guiding the investigators through the whole process while advising the authorities on the ways to handle the information collected from Mt Gox. Earlier this month, upon Payward Group’s insistence, the Japanese authorities withheld the release of all Mt Gox associated bitcoin addresses as it may pose a significant risk to the privacy of the users to whom the addresses might have belonged to.
The CEO of Kraken, Jesse Powell, applauding the team involved in Mt Gox investigation says
“Kraken is honored to provide support to the Trustee on behalf of the community and Mt Gox clients. We are pleased by today’s announcement and the progress that has been made toward returning clients’ assets. We’ll continue to offer our assistance wherever possible and I look forward a speedy resolution from here.”
Meanwhile, the Japanese investigative agencies will continue investigation into Mark Karpeles, the owner and CEO of Mt Gox at that time to find out whether he played any role in the disappearance of a significant amount of bitcoins from the platform.
The recent announcement assures the affected that someone is still looking to the whole fiasco and they can have hopes of receiving at least a partial settlement, if not in full soon.
Ref: Kraken PR Image: NewsBTC