Research Note #1: An analysis of Mt. Gox creditor claims

Mt. Gox launched in 2010 and once hosted more than 70% of global Bitcoin trading volume before collapsing and ceasing operations in February 2014 and filing for bankruptcy. Users who had a balance in BTC or any fiat currency at the time when Mt. Gox ceased operations were able to file a claim with the Mt. Gox trustee in charge of the bankruptcy procedure. After more than eight years, the Mt. Gox trustee announced on July 06th, 2022, that it would “prepar[e] to make repayments” starting from “approximately end of August”, 2022.

In this research note, we analyzed data from the list of all 22,560 individual creditors. The total claims amount to $18.6 billion in BTC and BCH and $48.1 million in USD. Claims among creditors are highly concentrated. The bottom half of creditors have combined claim of 1.3% of the total $18.6 billion ($240 million). In contrast, the top 1% of creditors together account for over 50% of all claims. The top 0.1% – only 23 claims – share 27.3% of all claims, or $5.1 billion.

Link to the research note: An analysis of Mt. Gox creditor claims