Kraken Returns Bitcoin to Customers of Mt. Gox 10 Years After Hack

Kraken said Tuesday it has “successfully distributed” Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash to customers entangled in a hack that took down former Japanese exchange Mt. Gox 10 years ago.

“It’s been nearly a decade since Kraken was selected by the Trustee to facilitate the investigation and return of client funds,” Kraken’s CEO Dave Ripley said in a statement to X. “It was our privilege and it was our duty.”

It was not immediately clear how much Kraken had returned to Mt. Gox customers as part of its role. Kraken did not immediately return a request for comment.

It marks one of the last remaining chapters to be concluded in the Mt. Gox saga, which has taken years to resolve.

Kraken, as part of efforts to make Mt. Gox users whole, became one of five tasked with returning customer funds to some of the 127,000 creditors affected by the 2014 collapse.

Creditors are said to be awaiting more than $7 billion worth of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and cash distributions from other entities trusted with mediating the process.

Designated crypto exchanges tasked by the Mt. Gox estate with returning stolen funds to former customers include Bitstamp, SBI VC Trade, Bitbank, and Coincheck.

The exact timing of when creditors can expect to receive their funds from the other four exchanges remains unclear. The exchanges mentioned did not immediately return a request for comment.

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence said Tuesday Mt. Gox had begun moving a total of $2.85 billion worth of Bitcoin to new wallets, with $340 million of that heading to four separate addresses owned by Bitstamp.

The Mt. Gox estate still holds some 85,234 BTC valued at $5.7 billion, Arkham tweeted.

While some customers are lucky enough to receive their Bitcoin, local Japanese law enforcement managed to retrieve just 140,000 of the 850,000 digital assets stolen to repay creditors.

A rehabilitation proposal was approved in 2021 that promised to remunerate about 90% of the assets owed to affected customers.

Once the largest crypto exchange in the world, handling over 70% of all Bitcoin transactions globally, Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after hackers stole 850,000 Bitcoin, worth $56 billion based on current market rates.