A couple of months ago Mt. Gox Rehabilitation Trustee announced that they are ready to start the repayment process to those who have claims. While the announcement and the process of repaying the bitcoins may have some influence in the markets and the price of bitcoin, it was a welcome news. It is about time these bitcoins are returned to those who lost bitcoins or have claims. More than 130k bitcoins need to be redistributed, and some of them may find their way to the markets.
A few days ago, Mt. Gox Trustee published another announcement, which indicates that repayment will start on September 15, 2022, instead of August as it was originally planned in the previous announcement. Feel free to read the correspondence titled - Information on Prohibition of Assignment, etc. of Rehabilitation Claims yourself. It is only three pages. According to this it looks like the repayment process has not started yet.
The start date of the Assignment, or repayment to creditors will be September 15, 2022 Japan time. The end date of the Assignment is not clear. It says the end date will be Base Repayment Deadline.
The Base Repayment Deadline is set by Rehabilitation Trustee with the permission of the court as the date deemed appropriate for repayment and will be set in due course.
In other words, the end date can be anything of their choosing depending on how things go with repayment process. It is understandable, that they wouldn't provide a set date as this process can get too complicated and to make sure everything goes right and all creditors get their claims it is wise not to have set deadlines at this time.
The previous announcement provided information on how creditors can receive their repayments. They have options of early lump-sum repayment, cash/fiat, and portion of repayments in bitcoin and/or bitcoin cash. This announcements seems to be more focused on making sure the process goes smooth, and certain items are clarified, so that there is no confusion after the fact.
Among such clarifications are:
- Discontinuation of Acceptance of Applications for Claim Transfer Procedures
- Handling of Notice of Transfer for Rehabilitation Claims During Assignment, etc.
By this time, one would assume that everybody would have their paperwork, claims and other information details in order and submitted. But we don't live in an ideal world, and there are always some parties that may have not finished their due diligence. This announcement in a way serves as a warning, saying that once they start repayments no more application for claim transfers will be accepted, at least during the repayment period.
The second thing they are stopping is the ability to transfer these claims during repayment process. In their words, during Assignment the Rehabilitation Trustee plans to suspend access to the System for transferees and the transferors of rehabilitation claims. Their reason is very valid, if transfers of claims continued that would make the process of repayments more confusing and complicated as it would be difficult to whom the payments should be made.
As a consequence of restricting these actions, creditors won't be able to choose a repayment method or register payee information. Hopefully, everybody already submitted their information and just waiting to receive their funds. While not all creditors are the original Mt. Gox users who lost funds, since some have sold their rights or claims to these funds long time ago to other entities, I would still think most would have already submitted their info by now. It doesn't hurt to be careful and take extra measures to make sure things go as planned.
The last message Mt. Gos Trustee wanted to convey in this announcement is that they want to make sure all creditors understand that Rehabilitation Trustee or Rehabilitation Debtor will not be liable to rehabilitation creditors if something goes wrong. There is always a chance things may not work out as planned. Hopefully everything will go smooth and Mt. Gox bitcoins will disappear into the history. There is only ten days left for the repayments to start. I hope it will be fast one, and the announcement we hear from the Trustee is that all repayments were made and no more bitcoins left under their control.