The deadline for Mt. Gox creditors to vote on a civil rehabilitation plan has now passed. Mt. Gox, the first exchange of its kind, suffered a devastating hack in 2014. Unknown hackers made away with thousands of bitcoins, causing the exchange to close down.
Victims waiting for justice forever
The process of compensating the users, whose funds were stolen, has been protracted and lengthy. Legal disputes and postponements have become typical of it. Today, October 9, was the last day, on which creditors could approve or reject a civil rehabilitation plan for compensation.
Creditors could vote online or by mail. They had more than four months to do so as the voting process commenced on May 31.
At least half of votes must be in favor of rehab plan
At least 50% of creditors must vote ‘yes’ for the plan to pass. Those who don’t vote will be considered to have voted against it. If the plan is accepted, there will be at least partial compensation for lost funds in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and the Japanese yen.
A coordinator of the creditors’ group MtGoxLegal, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the creditors asked the trustee and the Tokyo District court representative to provide clarity as to whether the 50% threshold had been passed, but there was no response. He told CoinDesk:
If we had been able to get an update, say, after half of the voting period had passed, and that update indicated that the participation rate in the vote was worryingly low, then we could have tried to fundraise and allocate those funds to bring more attention to the issue.
He added that if the plan isn’t approved, they might have to revert to the Mt. Gox bankruptcy as an alternative. Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles filed for bankruptcy soon after it emerged that the exchange had become insolvent.
‘Making up the rules’ doesn’t work
Kim Nilsson, a creditor who was tasked with the investigation of the theft in 2014, commented there was no point in getting angry:
Sure, everyone can imagine how all this could have been done far more easily if you just make up new rules as you go along, but that’s not how anything works, and to cynically attack people who have been bending over backwards to try to secure a much, much better outcome for creditors is just dumb.
