Well, this is one way to get a return on your investment. In 2014, Mt. Gox, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, suffered a notorious hack that stole 850,000 Bitcoins from the platform. On Tuesday, nearly a decade later, victims finally began to get their money back. However, some people have reported that Mt. Gox accidentally sent “double payments,” and the trustees are demanding that some of the money be returned.
“Due to a system issue, funds were inadvertently transferred to you twice,” Mt. Gox said in an email posted to numerous creditors. Reddit. “Please note that you are not entitled to receive the second transfer and are legally obligated to return said amount to the Rehabilitation Trustee.”
The hack caused Mt. Gox to file for bankruptcy in 2014. At the end of that year, 850,000 Bitcoins were worth about $272 million, but the price of Bitcoin has since soared and is currently worth more than $35 billion. For the past 10 years, creditors have been waiting for the Mt. Gox trustee to recover the stolen funds. Trustees recovered about 20 percent of the hack, and victims finally began seeing repayments to their PayPal accounts on Tuesday. However, Mt. Gox reportedly demanded the return of some of it.
There’s no rest for the victims of the Mt. Gox hack. An email from Mt. Gox said some users received two identical payments, with the first being an official repayment and the second in error and the trustee wanting it returned. Users on Reddit’s Mt. Gox bankruptcy subreddit expressed frustration that after 10 years of waiting, they still haven’t ended the fiasco. Mt. Gox has yet to make an official comment on the matter, so many details remain unclear.
Creditors can choose to receive funds via cryptocurrency, wire transfer to their bank account, or PayPal. Only PayPal appeared to have initiated repayments on Tuesday. Mt. Gox administrators must wait until October 2024 to complete repayments to creditors, according to CoinDesk. UBS analysts say huge Bitcoin repayments are unlikely to destabilize the cryptocurrency market. However, Bitcoin prices fell by more than 3% on Tuesday.
