Victims of the failed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox can now make an online claim for compensation thanks to the civil rehabilitation process sanctioned in June.

Mt. Gox was once the world’s largest bitcoin exchange before being declared bankrupt in 2014 amid claims that those behind the exchange had stolen between (depending on which report you believe) 744,000 and 850,000 bitcoins. Until the beginning of this year this was the largest cryptocurrency theft in history but in January it was overtaken by Coincheck whose collapse took an estimated $530m of NEM coins with it.

The exchange’s creditors then banded together to begin major legal action to try and retrieve their losses and the rehabilitation process announced in June is the result their efforts.

Following three years of legal pressure, the Tokyo district court finally ruled to reclassify the bankruptcy so that creditors would not only received the compensation they were owed but would receive that compensation in bitcoin (rather than in the cash equivalent of the value of their holdings as of early 2014). Given bitcoin's price had risen to almost $20,000 by the end of 2017, the claimants’ desire to move to a rehabilitation process to make sure their compensation would be based upon cryptocurrency’s current value is hardly surprising.

Mt. Gox’s appointed trustee, Nobuaki Kobayashi, has told creditors a specially designed online filing system is now up and running so that claims can be submitted. Those who filed during the previous bankruptcy proceedings have been asked to re-submit their documents online but the rehabilitation process is also open to anyone who was affected but hasn’t made a claim up this point.

However, Mr Kobayashi’s statement also tells potential claimants that the online filing is only available to claimants who still have their original Mt. Gox login details; if they don’t, they will need to send hard copies of their documentation to the Tokyo address included within the statement.

The claimants’ deadline for filing the proofs – online or offline – is October 22nd 2018 and the plan is for the trustees to submit their confirmation as to whether the individual claims are successful to the court by January 2th 2019. It has been stressed however that this date may be subject to change.

Mr Kobayashi went on to explain his team plan to develop the platform so that Mt. Gox’s corporate creditors can also file their compensation claims.

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