Mt. Gox, a cryptocurrency exchange that lost 850,000 Bitcoin in investor funds in 2014, will start repaying its defunct users. Mt. Gox’s rehabilitation trustee will start processing repayments in Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) starting July 2024. The trustee has asked the users for patience, adding that the order of the payments will depend on the respective cryptocurrency exchange.

More than $9.4 billion worth of Bitcoin is owed to approximately 127,000 creditors of Mt. Gox. These creditors have been waiting for over 10 years to recover their funds following the exchange’s collapse in 2014 due to multiple unnoticed hacks. Mt. Gox’s repayment plans were some of the most followed industry developments, with users waiting to be reimbursed for their lost BTC for over 10 years.

On May 28, Mt. Gox transferred 141,686 BTC worth $9.62 billion into a new wallet, “1Jbez,” from several other cold wallets associated with Mt. Gox. This represents the first onchain movement of funds from the collapsed exchange in over five years. Shortly after the reports, Mt. Gox rehabilitation trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi has confirmed that the consolidation is part of the exchange’s plans to start repaying creditors, without mentioning when the repayments will start to occur.

Mt. Gox was one of the earliest cryptocurrency exchanges, once facilitating more than 70% of all trades made within the blockchain ecosystem. Mt. Gox went offline in 2014 after a security breach resulted in a loss of over 850,000 BTC in user funds, worth over $51.9 billion. The current Bitcoin price is above $61,100. Bitcoin price fell to a local low of $420 in February 2014, shortly after the exchange went offline. Mt. Gox was reportedly hacked six times between 2011 and 2014.

Despite the announcement from Mt. Gox’s rehabilitation trustee, repayments the current deadline could face further delays, as it was set in September 2023 — a month before Mt. Gox was initially scheduled to repay the exchange’s creditors by Oct. 31, 2023. The total amount of Bitcoin to be released remains uncertain, with estimates ranging from 142,000 BTC to 200,000 BTC. Additionally, Mt. Gox still controls 143,000 BCH and 69 billion Japanese yen, further complicating the situation.

Mt. Gox is expected to repay its creditors 142,000 Bitcoin and 143,000 in the forked cryptocurrency Bitcoin Cash in addition to 69 billion Japanese yen ($510 million) by October 2024. The latest table updates followed the completion of identity verification of Mt. Gox creditors and their crypto exchange accounts that would be used to repay Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in January 2024. Some available platforms include Bitstamp, Kraken, Bitbank, BitGo and SBI VC Trade.

Multiple Mt. Gox creditors have reported that their Mt. Gox claims accounts were updated with information about Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and fiat repayment, with many suggesting that cryptocurrency repayments are coming soon. Some of the first such reports surfaced on the Mt. Gox insolvency subreddit in mid-April, with users reporting the addition of amounts to be paid in the repayment data table on their accounts. According to a screenshot shared by one creditor, the Mt. Gox claims accounts now show a table with repayment status and other entries, such as the amount of completed repayment and the amount of incomplete repayment.

According to multiple posts on the Mt. Gox insolvency hub on Reddit, some creditors have already received fiat currency in their bank accounts. “Money received as USD into an HSBC currency account and looks like zero fees,” one Mt. Gox creditor wrote on April 22, adding that the payment came more than a month after the first table update appeared on the claims account. “Table had been updated March 15 first then April 8 second then April 18 when BTC lines arrived,” the Redditor stated.

The latest additions of Bitcoin on the accounts in the Mt. Gox rehabilitation claims system is a major move for Mt. Gox creditors signaling disbursement of crypto or fiat will happen, one Mt. Gox creditor told Cointelegraph. “In comparison, last December Japanese claimants received notes on their page and within two weeks they saw fiat in their accounts via PayPal and private banks,” the creditor said, adding: “Let’s hope the crypto remittance echoes that of its fiat predecessor.”