Mt. Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi has revealed details about the pacing of its Bitcoin sell-off in connection with a court-ordered rehabilitation process. Mt. Gox, the now-defunct Bitcoin exchange that was based in Tokyo, Japan, is in the process of complying, following the exchange’s hack back in February of 2014.
In a statement released today, the attorney explained that between March 18 and June 22, Mt. Gox sold 24,658.00762 BTC and 25,331.00761 BCH – 25,975,702,352 yen or $230 million – for fiat.
On June 22, the Tokyo District Court issued an order for Kobayashi to begin a civil rehabilitation to help customers recoup lost funds. Kobayashi structured the massive sell-off prior to the rehabilitation process.
“It was necessary and appropriate to procure a suitable amount of money to secure the interests [of] the creditors for the principal amount and delay damages of the determined and undetermined bankruptcy claims.”
As a result of the sale, the balance remaining in the trustee’s account is approximately 70,059 million yen ($621 million). From this total, Kobayashi set up a trust worth 15,894,530,915 ($140,745,199.29) to preserve funds in fiat for bankruptcy creditors of the exchange.
Since the infamous Mt. Gox hack of February 2014, when the exchange lost its customers’ 744,408 BTC, about 200,000 BTC have been recovered. The crypto community has been split over how to deal with these remaining funds.
Some in the crypto community believe the sell-offs are largely behind the bear market that has defined the 2018 crypto landscape.
[the_ad id="42537"] [the_ad id="42536"]While Kobayashi, aka the ‘Tokyo Whale’, claimed the sell-offs would be executed without having a negative effect on the market, the Mt. Gox trustee reportedly sold over $400 million in BTC and BCH in early 2018, a move that arguably helped solidify the bear market.
News of Mt. Gox sell-offs continue to reverberate across the crypto markets. At time of writing, Bitcoin is currently trading at $6,370, down 3.3% in the past 24 hours, according to WorldCoinIndex.