In the past 8 years, the crypto market was shocked by the biggest cryptocurrency heist ever. Since then, investors have been fighting to get some of their tokens back.
Mt. Gox, the once-dominant bitcoin exchange, was hacked and caused the loss of 850,000 bitcoins following a massive withdrawal by hackers, causing the exchange to file for bankruptcy in 2014. Users and law enforcement have joined hands to find who the criminals are who got away with the digital currency. and their civil litigation to recover 140,000 identifiable bitcoins.
Under the plan approved by creditors, the trustees handling the redistribution of assets said last month they were approaching the repayment phase of bitcoin, a spinoff cryptocurrency called bitcoin cash, and regular cash to be returned by the government to victims.
It is unclear to what extent the return of bitcoins to victims (users) will impact the market. Users who receive their Bitcoin holdings back are likely to sell or hold Bitcoin holdings. Looking at past prices, Bitcoins were worth about $540 each when Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy. Even with the recent selloff, BTC has risen more than 3,500% since then.
The trustee also gives creditors the option of taking a mix of crypto and cash in hand or waiting for a later payment with the possibility of getting more funds.
The 2019 trustee report shows that trustees hold:
141,686 bitcoins
142,846 bitcoin cash
69,776,002,441 Japanese yen.
Elsewhere, the crypto market in the past week has experienced a downfall as the price of BTC fell from a price level above $25,200 to a multi-week low below $21,000. This all happened in less than seven days.
The beginning of the current week also does not have any positive sentiments. Based on reports, 140k BTC is expected to be returned starting at the end of the month.
