After a much-awaited gap, users who suffered from the 2014 Mt. Gox hack are getting compensated. At press time, 40% of the repayments have been successful. Mt. Gox has transferred another $2.5 billion worth of Bitcoins to pay more customers.
From 2011 to 2014, the crypto exchange Mt. Gox was hacked multiple times and lost 850,000 Bitcoins. Later, in March 2014, 200,000 Bitcoins were successfully recovered. The exchange plans to distribute 90,000 of these recovered Bitcoins among its customers as compensation.
The delay was caused by multiple factors, such as data falsification and legal matters.
At the time of the hack, Bitcoin was priced between $30 and $653 (2011- 2014), meaning users who lost money would receive returns of 100x to 3000x based on their cost at purchase.
Mt. Gox Repayment Schedule
Mt. Gox is currently placed under a trust as per Japanese law, and the trust manages the operations, including repayment. The exchange had shut down all its operations in 2014 and had filed for bankruptcy in Japan.
As per the initial schedule, repayments were to begin by October 2023. However, it was pushed a year ahead.
As per the latest repayment schedule, Mt. Gox must repay users by October 2024. Around $9 billion worth of Bitcoins are scheduled to be returned to 127,000 creditors.
On July 22, the exchange transferred $2.8 billion worth of Bitcoins to multiple addresses, and $354 million was sent to four addresses on the Bitstamp exchange.
Less than 24 hours later, an additional $2.5 billion worth of Bitcoins were transferred to a new address. This marks the repayment of $5.3 billion, with the remaining $4.7 billion to be repaid.
As per Arkham Intelligence, Mt. Gox still has $5.6 billion of Bitcoins in its holdings.
As per Arkham Intelligence, before the repayments, Mt. Gox had $10 billion in assets.
Customers Get 100,000% Returns
Mt Gox was drained in multiple hacks over three years (2011 – 2014). In 2011, the price of Bitcoin was nearly $30, and in 2014, it was almost $650.
At press time, Bitcoin trades at $66,482.
This means that Mt. Gox users would receive 100 to 3000x returns for every lost Bitcoin. The huge returns are expected to crash the markets if most users decide to sell them.
However, according to Alex Thorne, Galaxy Digital’s Head of Research, the funds paid back to Mt. Gox users are not likely to hit the markets anytime soon. Thorne believes they are “diamond-handed.”
Yet another piece of research by JP Morgan paints a different picture. This research believes that Mt. Gox repayments would have a very bearish impact on Bitcoin’s price.
If we take the letter point of view, the markets may sink to $45,000 levels. The logic behind such a low price range is that the Bitcoin sales by the German government, which were even lower, at $3 billion, took the price down to $53,900.
Markets Didn’t Crash, Yet
Bitcoin was at $66,377 at press time, down by 0.45% over the last 24 hours. Despite the lucrative returns for the compensated customers, the markets did not crash or sell off.
However, the price of Bitcoin has seen some corrections in the last three days when it made an attempt to cross $70,000 but had to return from $68,456.
Looking at the RSI, Bitcoin’s momentum was still strong at 60 despite a correction from the RSI level of 68.
On the upside, Bitcoin has two resistances at $71,245 and $73,700, above which it is expected to begin its journey for $100k.
On the downside, Bitcoin has strong support at $61,800 and $58,100.
