Mount Gox is pushing back Bitcoin refunds by another year

Mount Gox’s court-appointed receiver has postponed repayments from creditors of the defunct exchange and pushed back the deadline to October 31, 2026.

Rehabilitation administrator Nobuaki Kobayashi wrote that many creditors have still not received their refunds because they “failed to complete the necessary procedures,” while others faced problems during the process.

The change was formally approved by a Tokyo court and announced in a notice published on Monday.

Kobayashi said most basic and early repayments have already been completed for verified creditors, but many others remain unpaid in what has been one of the longest restitution attempts in crypto history to date.

To date, approximately 19,500 creditors have received funds, while pending cases have prompted a one-year extension. Arkham data shows that Mount Gox still holds approximately 34,689 BTC, worth almost $4 billion at current prices.

Declutter has contacted Kobayashi and Mount Gox representatives for comment and will update this article if they respond.

Year after year

The latest delay extends a reimbursement process that has been years behind schedule.

Mount Gox, once the largest Bitcoin exchange, has postponed redemption deadlines several times since its collapse in 2014 and the rehabilitation procedures that followed. Despite partial payouts through registered exchanges, most creditors are still waiting to recover the funds lost in the theft of approximately 850,000 BTC.

Efforts to recover the lost amount were initiated in 2021, when the Tokyo District Court approved Mount Gox’s civil rehabilitation plan, allowing creditors to recover some of the stock exchange’s remaining assets. That decision cleared the way for the return of about $9 billion Bitcoin And Bitcoin cash to an estimated 24,000 creditors, formally ending seven years of bankruptcy proceedings.

In September 2023, the rehabilitation trustee extended the repayment deadline by one year, moving it from October 2023 to October 2024, citing delays in verifying creditor information and coordinating exchanges. That announcement marked the first major delay since the court-approved rehabilitation plan was adopted in 2021.

Between late June and early July 2024, Mount Gox administrators published a notice that refunds would begin in early July. This caused a sharp sell-off, with Bitcoin falling towards $61,000, ETF flows turning negative and liquidations increasing.

In October 2024, the curator extended the deadline again. Bitcoin received a brief boost after the announcement, as short-term selling pressure was alleviated by keeping potential supply off the market.

Late last year, a $2.8 billion transfer from a wallet linked to Mount Gox barely moved the markets, with traders largely dismissing it as an internal transaction. The muted reaction reflected how much deeper and more liquid Bitcoin markets have become over the years.

Now that deadline is being pushed back again, by another full year, extending a process that has been testing creditors’ patience for more than a decade.