Mt. Gox Bitcoins Stay Put: Claims Deadline Pushed Back to Spring 2020

The trustee in charge of refunding users who lost money in the implosion of Bitcoin (BTC) exchange Mt. Gox has again extended the submission deadline for claims. 

In a statement released on Oct. 28, Nobuaki Kobayashi said that the high volume of problematic requests for money meant that a five-month extension was inevitable.

New claims deadline March 31, 2020

In a statement released on Oct. 28, Nobuaki Kobayashi said that the high volume of problematic requests for money meant that a five-month extension was inevitable. 

Kobayashi confirmed the plan just one day before the current deadline arrived. That, too, was the result of an extension which the trustee agreed in April. 

“A large amount of rehabilitation claims that the Rehabilitation Trustee fully or partially disapproved remains undetermined for being subject to claim assessment procedures and appeals against a decision on a petition for claim assessment,” he explained.

Kobayashi’s statement concluded:

“In light of the foregoing, the Rehabilitation Trustee filed a motion to seek an extension of the submission deadline of a rehabilitation plan at the Tokyo District Court, and, on October 25, 2019, the Tokyo District Court issued an order to extend the deadline for a rehabilitation plan to March 31, 2020.”

Almost six years since collapse

As Cointelegraph reported, a total of around 24,000 people were implicated in the Mt. Gox debacle. The exchange collapsed in early 2014, with a lengthy legal process still to award any refunds. Around 850,000 BTC (at the time worth $460 million) disappeared from its books. 

The cryptocurrency industry is also keenly eyeing another exchange’s demise this year. Canada’s QuadrigaCX, the founder of which suddenly died in late 2018, still owes around $145 million to its 115,000 creditors.

The founder’s widow handed over $9 million in assets last month.