The crash of the Japanese Bitcoin exchange, Mt Gox, was probably one of the worst events to happen in bitcoin history to date. In fact, right afterwards, the digital currency proved its incredibly volatile nature by dropping in value significantly.
Well, the people affected by the hack may have something to look forward to in the next couple of days, considering the fact that some of the investors will be receiving a part of their bitcoin investment back. With this in mind, an announcement made by the Kraken Bitcoin Exchange showcases that the verification process being carried out for over 25,750 claims has been completed.
With this in mind, full calculations of Mt Gox’s history have been made, thus showing that the amount of bitcoin that the exchange had in possession at the time of its collapse was of 202, 185 BTC, which are currently valued at roughly $100 million.
In a recent press release outlining the completion of the verification process, Nobuaki Kobayashi, the court-appointed trustee of the meetings stated that: “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 has also been closely involved in the investigation, and is willing to help the Japanese authorities distribute all the bitcoin that has been recovered. It’s important to keep in mind however that Kraken refuses to provide information about the current status of the claims made. Investors are encouraged to check the status of their claim, directly on the Mt Gox website.
The Payward Group-owned company has also guided investigators throughout the verification process, while also encouraging Japanese authorities to not release all of the bitcoin addresses associated with the Mt Gox collapse, as this would pose a risk to the privacy of all people involved at the time of the crash.
Jesse Powell, the CEO of Kraken went ahead and applauded the team’s efforts, by saying that: “Kraken is honoured 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.”
So far, it seems that the value of all claims put together equals to roughly $2.4 trillion, which is a huge amount considering the current value of bitcoin. There are however suspicious claims as well, which will likely be denied payment by the authorities.
At the moment of writing, Japanese law enforcement will continue to investigate Mark Karpeles, the CEO and owner of the Mt Gox exchange platform, in order to determine whether he played any role in the hack, which left thousands of people without their bitcoin.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, what do you personally think about the current state of the Mt Gox investigation and the effort of Kraken and the Japanese authorities? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.