Its been four years since Mt. Gox shut its doors and the cryptocurrency is still laden with controversies. A recent set of leaked data shows that the trustee of the exchange, who is responsible for rehabilitation proceedings, sold a massive amount of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash on the crypto Trading Platform BitPoint.
Screenshots of transactions from Bitpoint were shared by an unidentified party on GoxDox.com, a collaborative campaign group of Mt. Gox creditors. The data was reportedly sourced from the on-going legal proceedings of Mt. Gox at the Tokyo District Court.
According to the data, Mt. Gox’s trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi sold 60,000 BTC, and BCH tokens were sold on the trading platform.
Questions are also raised on BitPoint’s part, as GoxDox noted: “Unless BitPoint is being really generous, we’d wager the reason they are depositing billions JPY into the trustee’s bank account is because they were hired to sell the MtGox Estate's BTC/BCH.”
GoxDox further highlighted Kraken CEO Jesse Powell’s response when the trustee approached the exchange to sell a large chunk of the holdings. Powell then advised that if the trustee has to sell that much amount of coin, he should do it in an auction or should approach an OTC desk as this will not create an unnecessary fluctuation in the market.
“Instead of taking Kraken’s advice, the trustee decided to (1) sell, (2) not tell us how he sold, and (3) hire a different so-called “cryptocurrency expert” to sell the BTC/BCH,” GoxDox added.
Can the Trustee be Trusted?
This is not the first time Kobayashi is accused of such action as similar allegations against him were made in 2017 and 2018.
Mt. Gox’s former CEO Mark Karpeles is currently under trial under the charges for manipulating the exchange’s data and pocketing 340 million yen (around $3.1 million) from customers’ accounts. After a long trial, the court is scheduled to announce its verdict on March 15, 2019.
Last month, the trustee of the doomed exchange announced that victims can still file for claims though the deadline has already passed, as reported by Finance Magnates.
