Mt. Gox moves over $9 billion in BTC: preparing nearly 140,000 bitcoins for refunds

Data from Arkham Intelligence, a blockchain platform that tracks and analyzes transactions, reveals that Mt. Gox, once the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, recently transferred approximately 137,000 bitcoins from 72 wallets to an anonymous address. This amounts to over $9.4 billion when writing, based on Bitcoin’s value from CoinMarketCap.

The Mt. Gox scandal was one of the most dramatic events in crypto market history. In 2014, the company—founded by programmer Jed McCaleb, who also co-founded Ripple—suspended all transactions, shut down its website, and filed for bankruptcy after reporting the 850,000 bitcoins loss due to multiple security breaches. At that time, this loss was worth around $450 million, which would be over $58 billion today.

We’re gearing up to publish a piece on the toughest hacks and exchange closures the crypto market has faced. The goal is to underscore the risks of storing large sums in centralized exchanges, assuming everything will be fine indefinitely. Naturally, Mt. Gox’s saga will be a focal point in our exploration.

According to Arkham, 137,000 bitcoins were transferred in multiple transactions on May 28 between 1:41 a.m. and 4:46 a.m. UTC. Most of these transfers were around 2,000 BTC each. Additionally, bitinfocharts shows that Mt. Gox addresses moved 142,846 BCH to an unknown wallet on the same day (we are talking about $66 million).

Over the years, legal issues have delayed refunds to those who lost money after Mt. Gox’s closure. While some Reddit users reported receiving refunds via PayPal in December 2023, an admin contacted them shortly after alleging double payments. You can read user comments about this here and here.

Mark Karpelès, Mt. Gox’s former CEO, shared his thoughts on X:

“As far as I know everything is fine with MtGox. The trustee is moving coins to a different wallet in preparation of the distribution that will likely happen this year, there is no imminent sale of bitcoins happening”.

It’s worth noting that Nobuaki Kobayashi, the court-appointed trustee overseeing the Mt. Gox case, has confirmed that the settlement of digital asset claims is already in progress. Back in October 2023, Kobayashi himself acknowledged the possibility of extending the payment deadline until October 31, 2024, covering initial, interim, and final payments. However, there is some market concern about the aftermath: once creditors receive their assets, there is a worry they might rush to sell their bitcoins, potentially causing nervousness and significant downward pressure on the price.

“The Rehabilitation Trustee is preparing to make repayment for the portion of cryptocurrency rehabilitation claims to which cryptocurrency is allocated… As the Rehabilitation Trustee is proceeding with the preparation for the above repayments, please wait for a while until the repayments are made”.

–Nobuaki Kobayashi.

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