Fortress Makes New Offer to Mt. Gox Creditors
Fortress Investment Group, a hedge fund and private equity investor with nearly $40 billion in assets under management, has offered Mt. Gox investors a second chance to settle their claims privately with them based on the liquidation value of existing BTC claims. The Mt. Gox Trust is currently willing to pay 15 percent of customer funds to liquidate investor claims. According to a source close to Bloomberg, the revised offer of $770 per BTC is lower than their previous offer of $900, owing to the fall in price in recent months, December 20, 2019.
New Offer for Mt. Gox Affected
Five years have been passed since the demise of Mt. Gox, and investors with coins on the exchange have still seen no relief from the exchange’s trust or the legal system. Restitution is on everyone’s minds, but it doesn’t seem like a possibility in the near future.
The coins with the Mt. Gox Trustee are being withheld by two different lawsuits, each nearly 1-2 years away from an initial ruling by the judges. To pile onto this misery, if the defendants of the lawsuits file a counter appeal, that could take an additional 1-3 years from the initial ruling.
After five years, it may be enough for some people and they will be willing to take whatever they can get. Fortress Investment Group has sent out a letter to all existing Mt. Gox creditors, promising them their liquidation value and settlement within three days if they accept to defer their claims to Fortress. Fortress stands to make quite a bit off arbitrage from whichever creditors accept their terms, but they will have to factor in the risk of the lawsuit going against the creditors other than just playing the long game – the really, really long game.
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Fortress’ letter says the offer stands till December 31, 2019, so creditors are required to send their written approval to the company before then.
Lessons from the Gox
The whole idea of “not your keys, not your bitcoin” was inspired by the Mt. Gox disaster that turned the entire market on its head. Although a significant amount of time has passed since then, people still leave their holdings on exchanges, and exchanges still get hacked for astounding amounts.
Awareness around security has been growing, but it needs to hit much higher peaks to inform the general public who are used to custodial systems.
