Almost 10 years ago, the crypto exchange Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy and around 24,000 users lost their Bitcoins. Now the first customers are said to have received a refund.
How did Bitcoins disappear? The former trading card platform Mt. Gox was probably the largest trading center for Bitcoins in 2013; 70% of Bitcoin transactions took place via the platform 10 years ago. However, on February 7, 2014, Mt. Gox suddenly stopped all withdrawals.
By the end of February 2014, the head of the exchange had resigned, the website had been taken offline and the company had filed for bankruptcy. The platform also claimed that it had lost 750,000 of its customers’ Bitcoins due to a cyberattack. At that time, that corresponded to a value of around 473 million US dollars, at today’s exchange rate 428 million euros.
The collapse of the website is said to have affected 24,000 customers who waited years for their money. In November 2023 it was announced that the first creditors would be paid off. Now users are said to have gotten at least part of their money back, but there is a catch (via 3D Juegos).
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Some users allegedly get their money back twice
What is the current development? On December 26, 2023, the first users reported on social networks that they had received their money back from Mt. Gox. They also shared screenshots of incoming payments. Some users are said to have even received their money twice (via Reddit).
Then what’s the catch? It appears that so far only customers who chose to pay out the old-fashioned way have been paid out. So far there have been no reports from users who have received a refund for their lost cryptocurrency.
The refunded amount corresponds to the value that the Bitcoins had at the time; around 422 million euros are to be paid out to customers. However, at today’s rate, the lost 750,000 Bitcoins would be worth 28.8 billion euros (as of December 31, 2023).
Even if users are now happy about their payout, it is only a relatively small part of what they could have today under better conditions. Nevertheless, after such a long time, some probably no longer expected to get anything at all.
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