It seems that most victims of the MtGox collapse will have to wait much longer for the resolution of their claims. According to a report to the Tokyo District Court, publicly released today by MtGox bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, it seems only a sliver of claims have been dealt with so far.
Once the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, MtGox went bankrupt in February 2014 when it reported the disappearance of 850,000 bitcoins in a cyber attack, worth over $450 million at the time. Last year, the former CEO of the firm Mark Karpeles was arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police department and hit with allegations that he misappropriated more than $50 million from corporate accounts belonging to MtGox.
According to today's report, almost 25,000 people have filed claims for about $24 billion, of which only about $225 million worth of claims have been dealt with. Unfortunately, at an average of $955,000 per claim, it seems like a number of very large false claims were made that are only going to slow down the process. This will delay all legitimate claims from being satisfied, if that will ever happen at all considering that the total amount of bitcoins managed by the bankruptcy estate so far is only around $83 million (202,163.41191816 BTC). However, the bankruptcy lawyer says he is still investigating the existence of other bitcoins held by the bankrupt entity.
Attorney Kobayashi had this to say about the duration of his probe: "As matters now stand, investigations are under way, including investigations as to whether there are discrepancies between the activities of BTC on the database, which we are aware of at this time, and the records on the Blockchain . I am aware that there are phenomena where amounts in excess of those contemplated under the original BTC transaction went outside the system, etc., and I am conducting investigations taking into account these phenomena.
Due to the circumstances, such as the limited amount of information that exists, I believe it will be difficult to understand the full picture; however, I am planning to continue these investigations, as much as possible, taking into account the said phenomena."
