It appears as if the end could finally be in sight for the rehabilitation process of the inoperative cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox.

Creditors will now be able to submit proof of their claims, which is the first step towards receiving a cash payout equivalent to creditor’s holdings when the exchange went bankrupt.

This news came via the Mt. Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, who published a note this past Thursday announcing that a claim system is now online which allows creditors to file proofs for their claims to cash payouts.

The defunct cryptocurrency exchange has been embroiled in a long-running bankruptcy administration process following a widely publicized hacking of the site back in 2014, in which a whopping 744,000 Bitcoin were stolen.

Prior to this, Mt. Gox used to be one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume. Since the hack, however, creditors’ hopes of retrieving their funds have dwindled as exchange’s bankruptcy muddied the waters and led to complicated and slow proceedings.

Earlier this summer, however, things got moving as a Tokyo court ruled that Mt. Gox could proceed from bankruptcy to a civil rehabilitation process – something which opened the door for creditors to retrieve cash payouts equivalent to the value of their holdings when Mt. Gox entered bankruptcy.

According to Kobayashi, creditors will have to file their proofs before the 22nd of October this year.

Moreover, a separate document announced that the planned deadline for the Rehabilitation Trustee to submit a statement of approval or rejection to the court is January 24 of next year, however, no definite date has been set as of yet.

In addition to this, those users who have lost their login access to the Mt. Gox exchange can still submit claims, albeit through an offline method. More specifically, the will need to send their proof of the relevant claim to a Tokyo address shared by the Mt. Gox trustee.

This marks a significant step forward for Mt. Gox creditors, who have waited approximately four years to receive their funds. Nonetheless, lawyers representing Mt. Gox creditors have previously argued that the creditors should be repaid with their cryptocurrencies rather than a cash equivalent.

Due to the sizable gains of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin since Mt. Gox’s bankruptcy in 2014, a cash equivalent of creditors’ holdings back in 2014 could be worth far less than the cryptocurrency would be worth today.

Nevertheless, Mt. Gox creditors will surely be pleased that they can now begin to file for rehabilitation claims.

Image Source: “Flickr”