Mt. Gox trustee has a new rehabilitation plan to pay back creditors

Those individuals who are still waiting to settle their claims with the defunct Mt. Gox digital currency exchange are going to have to wait a little longer. The lawyer who was tasked with distributing funds after the exchange suddenly crashed six years ago, Nobuaki Kobayashi, wants to change around the game plan once more, and now wants to only make payments in fiat. The move comes after some claimants had received payouts in BTC and BCH, but these are reportedly no longer going to be options. Kobayashi has stated that he has no plans to purchase more BTC or BCH.

The payback scheme has now been running for several years, with giant gaps seen in between the processing of claims. Kobayashi has already delayed the final payment window at least once, asking a judge last October to give him more time. The judge agreed, extending the new deadline to March 31 of this year, but it now looks like another deadline shift might be coming. 

Going forward, claims that ask to be paid in fiat, BTC and BCH will be handled as requested, but any claims that wanted any other form of digital currency will be paid in cash. Kobayashi further explains that funds will first go for the rehabilitation proceedings, with creditors falling next in line. Priority payments will be processed in order to secure fiat currency claims, and then payment claims of up to $1,800 will be handled next. Kobayashi also wants to liquidate certain digital assets held by Mt. Gox in order to have fiat to cover the payouts. 

It’s possible, because of any potential liquidation, that some creditors who were expecting to receive payouts in digital currency will have to settle for alternatives. This could mean that some of the payout might have to be paid in fiat, instead of BTC or BCH, depending on how the remaining claims process is managed. 

These alterations to the plan are reportedly just a draft of what is coming – Kobayashi has to have the final policies in place by the end of this month. Eventually, but with no guaranteed timeframe in place, the remaining Mt. Gox creditors might receive at least a portion of the funds held by the exchange when it died in 2014. Meanwhile, the company’s CEO at the time, Mark Karpeles, is still claiming he had nothing to do with the platform’s security breach or the loss of more than $425 million in BTC, and is hoping a judge will take his side and order fraud charges against him dropped.