Bitstamp to Start Distributing Mt. Gox Proceeds on Thursday
Customers of the defunct crypto exchange lost their funds in a 2014 hack, and the imminent distribution of nearly $9 billion worth of assets to creditors has been weighing on crypto markets.
Updated Jul 24, 2024, 4:33 p.m. Published Jul 24, 2024, 3:33 p.m.
- Bitstamp's action follows reports by creditors receiving assets on Kraken on Wednesday.
- The prices of bitcoin and bitcoin cash declined after the news.
Mt. Gox customers will start receiving payouts from the defunct crypto exchange through Bitstamp on Thursday, some 10 years after the exchange succumbed to a hack.
The funds in bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and bitcoin cash (BCH) were received from the Mt. Gox trustees today, Bitstamp said in post on its website. U.K. customers will not be included in the first set of distributions, the crypto exchange said.
Bitstamp's action came after multiple Mt. Gox creditors reported receiving assets via Kraken. The trust managing the Mt. Gox assets started sending assets to several crypto exchanges this month, and users will be able to reclaim the funds in the coming weeks. Mt. Gox was once the world’s biggest crypto exchange, handling over 70% of all bitcoin transactions in its early years.
The imminent distribution of nearly $9 billion worth of assets, mostly BTC and BCH, has been weighing on the crypto market. Investors were worried the creditors would sell the reclaimed assets, realizing the profits of 10 years of price appreciation, and flood the market.
Bitcoin fell slightly to $66,200 on the news, while BCH dropped nearly 2%.
Read more: Crypto Markets to See Selling Pressure in July From Mt. Gox Creditors: JPMorgan
Sheldon Reback
Sheldon Reback is CoinDesk's European news editor. Before joining the company, he spent 26 years as an editor at Bloomberg News, where he worked on beats as diverse as stock markets and the retail industry as well as covering the dot-com bubble of 2000-2002. He subsequently managed the Bloomberg Terminal's main news page before becoming the European editor for a global project to produce short, chart-based stories across the newsroom. His previous work as a journalist took him to Hong Kong, where he reported and edited for several technology magazines, and he also has experience in market research and writing computer manuals. Sheldon has an MBA from the London Business School and an industrial chemistry degree from Brunel University. He owns a small amount of ether.
Krisztian Sandor
Krisztian Sandor recently graduated from NYU's business and economic reporter program as a Fulbright fellow and worked with Reuters and Forbes previously. Originally from Budapest, Hungary, he is now based in New York. He holds BTC and ETH.
