The trustee of the funds seized in the MtGox case has announced that significant progress has been in approving or denying the MtGox claims. The announcement was made through San Francisco based Bitcoin exchange Kraken, who was appointed by the court to assist the trustee.
A total of 9,863 Bitcoin-only MtGox claims have been made through Kraken’s online process. Of those, 7,952 claims have been approved for a total of 12,583,717,791 JPY (110,560,179.13 USD). Combined with claims based on fiat deposits, the trustee states that claims worth 25,702,801,244 JPY (225,924,124.17 USD) have been approved.
The report comes after the latest creditors meeting and was written in Japanese by the trustee of the MtGox funds, attorney Nobuaki Kobayashi. It was then translated to English. It states that Kobayashi currently holds 1,210,107,188 JPY (10,632,979.89 USD) in fiat currencies seized from MtGox and 202,163.41191816 Bitcoins (currently 84,785,737.67 USD). Combined, Kraken has roughly 95,418,717.55 USD in order to pay out 110,560,179.13 USD in already approved MtGox claims. In addition, a total of over 23 billion USD has been claimed (for comparison, Bitcoin’s total marketcap is under 7 billion USD.) While most of that will be denied, it seems that a full debt recovery for creditors is unlikely.
There are five specific creditors who are asking for a total of 13,119,083,453 JPY (115,230,403 USD) for debts not related to the exchange itself. It is not clear from the document who these creditors are, or if they were approved.
Kraken CEO Jesse Powell was quoted in the announcement as having said that the “[c]ontinued progress in the MtGox bankruptcy proceedings will have beneficial effects for the bitcoin community globally. Kraken is proud to volunteer our resources and expertise in an attempt to minimize damage to creditors, restore faith in the bitcoin community, and demonstrate trusted leadership in the industry.”
MtGox was the world’s first centralized bitcoin exchange and for many years it remained the industry’s largest. After a series of security failures and accusations of fraud, it halted customer withdraws in late 2013 before collapsing entirely in early 2014. CEO Mark Karpeles is currently awaiting trial on embezzlement charges. He has filed for bankruptcy in both the United States and Japan.
Former MtGox users who have made claims through Kraken’s online process can check on the status of their claim through claims.mtgox.com.
Kraken recently made headlines by announcing a Series B funding round and acquiring two US based competitors. We will keep you up to date on the MtGox bankruptcy case as information becomes available.