Mt. Gox: Fortress makes a new offer to the creditors

The story of Mt. Gox is enriched with a new chapter: the firm Fortress Investment Group LLC is ready to buy the credits claimed by those who lost bitcoins when the exchange closed, making a new offer. This is actually the second offer that the creditors receive and this time it is even lower than the first one that arrived in June. The first offer was 900 dollars for each bitcoin lost, as pointed out by Bloomberg who came into possession of the official letter. But at the time Bitcoin was in the middle of its hype that would bring it to reach 13,000 dollars.

The current offer is influenced by the fall in the price of BTC, practically halved, and stops at $778 for each bitcoin. The offer is valid until December 31st. 

When Mt. Gox went bankrupt, or rather, when it suspended withdrawals, on February 7th, 2014, a bitcoin was worth $783. 

There are currently at least two lawsuits pending to compensate the thousands of creditors who lost the bitcoins with the bankruptcy of what was then the largest exchange in existence.

The Fortress offer was created taking into account the number of bitcoins lost for each user, the current price and the bitcoins recovered which will be divided among the creditors.

Fortress leverages on immediate payment, within three days. Conversely, those who refuse to give up the credit would have to wait years before the current proceedings establish the actual settlement time. As the letter states, repayments have already been postponed twice, and litigants are given the opportunity to appeal against the pending lawsuits. In short, the time frame could be extended by up to five years. 

However, the hope of those who lost everything is to be able to get back the bitcoins at the current value, and not a figure that would come close to the counter value in dollars at the time of the closing of the exchange.

When Mt. Gox failed, it claimed to have lost 850,000 bitcoins, worth 450 million dollars at the time. Of this, only 200,000 was recovered and must be returned to creditors. The bankruptcy was caused by bad management and continuous withdrawals or thefts that the exchange suffered from 2011 until the date of bankruptcy. 

That of Mt. Gox remains a symbolic event for the cryptocurrency sector. After its failure, it was said that also bitcoin was dead. The reality is that bitcoin is alive and that in place of Mt. Gox other exchanges have emerged which are much more careful with regard to the management of funds.