MT Gox Trustee Sold Half a Billion Dollars Worth of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash

The MT Gox trustee has sold 35,841 BTC for $362 million and 34,008 BCH for $45 million according to reports coming out of a creditors meeting held earlier today.

Mark Karpeles, MT Gox’s former CEO, said the sums were “sold between December 2017 and February 2018 with the assistance of a bitcoin exchange.”

Little further detail is provided at this stage with a full report by the trustee providing no explanation why the funds were sold or why they were sold at this precise point.

The exchange in question is likely Kraken, which was meant to redistribute the funds once a decision was made based on the last information on the matter, but the trustee doesn’t say what exchange was used or what process was used for the sale.

The sums liquidated do appear to be the precise amount of claims made in the fiat equivalent of around $400 per bitcoin. Mark Karpeles suggested it wasn’t a coincidence:

That may be because the court is considering Civil Rehabilitation of the bankrupt exchange following a creditors’ petition. In reply, the court ordered the appointment of an examiner to examine whether there are reasons to dismiss the petition. That examiner reported to the court on February 28th 2018, stating:

“I concluded that there is no ground set forth in Paragraph 2 through 4 of Article 25 of the Civil Rehabilitation Act with respect to the Bankrupt Entity, MtGox Co., Ltd.

However, this conclusion is based on the premises that measures are taken to secure the interests that are expected to have already been obtained, in light of the size of the bankruptcy estate that has been established in the bankruptcy proceedings, by all creditors who filed proofs of claims for the pending bankruptcy case against the Bankrupt Entity, especially creditors whose bankruptcy claims are monetary claims, before the order of commencement of civil rehabilitation proceedings is made, i.e., before the stay of the bankruptcy proceedings.”

The examiner therefore stated there is no reason to rehabilitate if fiat creditors had been satisfied through the bankruptcy proceedings with the trustee so seemingly taking the necessary step to secure the claims at a hugely discounted rate of $400 per BTC by selling the bitcoin and bitcoin cash.

The trustee has another 165,000 bitcoin, currently worth some $1.5 billion, and an equal amount of BCH worth another $150 million. What he will do with those funds remains unclear.

Any likelihood for distribution appears slim and far away. “The matters such as the possibility of carrying out a distribution and the timing and method thereof have not yet been determined,” the trustee said now some four years after bankruptcy proceedings begun.

There’s a raft of claims and counterclaims by the trustee, including a petition to bankrupt Mark Karpeles. As such, any distribution appears very unlikely before all these proceedings are settled, which could at this rate be another half a decade, with all the legal expenses paid by the creditors.