What would those who have been waiting for them for almost ten years do with their assets? The market is still wondering how strong the pressure from potential sales of Mt.Gox will be.
ForkLog turned to one of the most powerful communities on the Internet, Reddit, for an answer to this question. Creditors-redditors share details of the process, tell personal stories about the exchange and complain about problems with refunds.
Awaiting compensation
Since July, the collapsed platform has started distributing funds to creditors. It is assumed that Mt.Gox will return a total of 142,000 BTC, 143,000 BCH and 69 billion yen to customers by October 31, 2024.
According to Arkham, at the time of writing, 46,164 BTC worth $2.64 billion remained in exchange-linked wallets. During the month, the addresses made a series of transfers worth billions of dollars, including to Bitbank, Kraken, Bitstamp and SBI VC Trade.
In a statement dated July 24, the exchange's trustee said that over 17,000 customers had received payments. So far, Mt.Gox has distributed about 41% of the funds.
The volume of compensation exceeded the inflow of funds into ETFs, the issue of miners and sales by the German authorities.
JPMorgan analysts suggested that the sale of the exchange's assets could put pressure on the market. Although, according to Sam Callahan of Swan Bitcoin, such concerns are exaggerated.
Glassnode noted that most of the investors receiving payments from Mt.Gox can be attributed to hodlers. This will potentially ease the pressure from sellers in the coming weeks, experts say.
The researchers did not dare to name the share of coins that will be put up for sale, noting that any reasoning on this score is nothing more than speculation. But perhaps the Mt.Gox customers themselves will be able to give a more accurate answer to this question.
Surveys of creditors on Reddit
Users of the social platform on the Mt.Gox subreddit conducted several surveys, including plans for the funds returned to BTC and BCH.
Many lenders on Reddit remain bullish and intend to hold assets. Based on the data in the Avocados6881 publication, the majority of respondents intend to "go to the point of having to spend." Fewer people plan to sell some, sell all assets or trade them.
Data: Reddit.Another survey from the user northcasewhite showed similar results: the majority "holds 100%", and the minority sells either partially or completely.
Data: Reddit.At the same time, the negative experience with a centralized platform has prompted many lenders to switch to non-custodial storage. According to the data from the Ed_5000 post, a significant part of the users who received funds moved assets to cold wallets.
Data: Reddit.Community Stories
The Academic-Truck-6370 redditor posted a screenshot with his 36 BTC (~$2.34 million at the time of publication of the post), which he received from Mt.Gox through the Bitstamp exchange.
Data: Reddit."I didn't manage to get anything from Mt.Gox (about several hundred thousand), but I'm glad that it happened, because it taught me not to store cryptocurrency on exchanges and just walk around," another user said in the comments.
A community member under the nickname Cytlan also shared a payment of 0.17 BTC (~$9900) and 0.17 BCH (~$57).
Data: Reddit.3katinkires received 0.67 BTC and 0.67 BCH with a total value of about $39,000.
Data: Reddit.In parallel, some redditors complained about problems with verification, receipt of funds and taxes.
A client of Mt.Gox from Germany with the nickname No_Time_9111 said that Kraken requires to re-confirm the identity, although he did it "a long time ago."
"Since the beginning of June, I have provided all the necessary documentation for manual verification, but now (after more than eight weeks) my account seems to be blocked, and of course last week I received an email from the trustee saying that my account cannot receive payment because it has not been verified." — the user complained.
In addition, lenders who use BitGo have not yet received notification of the timing of the distribution. At the same time, Mt.Gox has already notified about the transfer of assets to the wallets of the platform.
The russian_concussion editor talked about the problems with confirmation on BitGo. In his case, technical support refers to an incorrectly selected division of the company.
"You have selected BitGo Trust Company, Inc. in the settings, but you are a customer of BitGo New York Trust Company LLC, not BitGo Trust Company, Inc. Therefore, you need to choose BitGo Trust Company, Inc. again," the email says.
The user stated that he repeatedly changed the data, but his verification never took place.
Korbeille from France was going to contact a lawyer to find out about the taxation of the compensation received. He wondered at what price to calculate the share for the state — at the exchange rate at the time of the actual purchase or at the current one.
"One of the arguments in favor of the first option is that when someone steals €1,000 from you and then returns it, you are not obliged to pay taxes on them, since this is not a real acquisition," he argues.
User Dense_Spite3160 said that he had been mining bitcoin on a laptop for a long time and had an Mt.Gox account with a small balance of the first cryptocurrency. He had not followed the industry since 2011-2013, but when he saw the reports of payments, he tried to contact the manager.
Subsequently, he found letters on an old email from people who were involved in litigation, but he was denied compensation.:
"Mt.Gox claims that I waived my right by not responding [to the letter]. I find this crazy, as a couple of messages mostly in Japanese don't seem like an adequate notification."
The post caused a flurry of criticism in the comments. Many believe that the redditor needed to respond to the situation in a timely manner.
"No, it's not crazy, and the rest of us handled [the reimbursement process] just fine. You screwed up and got nothing. Get over it," one community member wrote.
Conclusion
There are more than 11,000 people on the Mt.Gox subreddit, and they communicate not only on the topic of compensation. Some are discussing options for reinvesting the received assets, while others are discussing the possible return of Alexander Vinnik to Russia and the restart of BTC-E.
Posts on Reddit do not fully reflect the mood of all creditors of the collapsed exchange, but it becomes clear that many of them are long-time users of cryptocurrencies and are optimistic about the industry. The market cannot avoid selling, but these factors indicate a possible easing of pressure.