MtGox might be completely solvent soon as BTC price rises and Tokyo court-appointed trustee is "fortunately" slow enough
It's really funny how things can go. MtGox crashed in 2014 and shaken Bitcoin and crypto-world. Some of us remember it, some of us experience bigger or smaller losses. Since that time remaining Mtgox asset is held by Tokio court-appointed trustee.
What happened? Well, simply seaid, majority MtGox asset (BTC) were stolen and final calculated claims become 45,609,593,503 JPY, or about $417,436,518 USD.
But some "smaller" portion of BTC holding was saved, specifically 202,185 BTC. Here comes the paradox situation. As BTC price grows, we can pretty soon see situation when this "small portion" of BTC can cover all the claims and de-facto make MtGox solvent again. This can easily happen once BTC price goes beyond 2070 USD, which already has happened on some exchanges. Insane, right? However, with this trend, MtGox can be 100% solvent this year or the next one. Situation might be even better because there was also some cash saved and maybe even some extra BTC and also currency exchange rates might move it a bit in both directions.
Even Mark Karpeless said on Reddit
Those statement is several days old, since then BTC price went up and so with current price 1865 USD per BTC, over 90% claims can be covered by remaining Bitcoins from MtGox.
You can count with me:
BTC Saved: 202,185 BTC
Current BTC price in USD: 1865
BTC asset in USD: 377,075,025
Total claims in USD: 417,436,518
Percentage of claims that can be covered now: 90,33%
That's pretty cool, isn't it - especially for those holding those claims. General expectancy was to get back about 25% at most, now it's heading to full recovery. Of course many people will still complain, especially those who were holding BTC there as those coins would be now about twice as valuable than in those days and as all claims are already evaluated in JPY, no BTC price increase will be reflected. But in general even current situation is great success.
Anyway, we truly live in pretty strange times! But if this happen and MtGox claims will be 100% refunded, it will partially undo all MtGox disaster in eyes of public and send very positive signal to all crypto markets! With this I'm not saying I want to see another MtGox happen. I don't and such exchanges should not exist on the crypto currency market, ever.
Resources:
Update: Today, all approved MtGox claims can be (theoretically) paid just by held Bitcoins
When I filled out my Claim on the Mt.GOX Website, I think we were asked how we wanted the claim to be Registered, in Fiat Currency of your Choice (in my case Euro) or in Bitcoin. I marked Bitcoin because 1. I believed I Bitcoin to recover in Time. (At the Time they said Court Time 2-3 years). 2. Some were say one should Claim I Dollars, You would benefit from the $ Case. So I wounder if I will get my Bitcoins or not. Thanks for mentioning the Stand. I have bin thinking in the same direction.
Based on my understanding, every claim is evaluated in JPY and even if you requested to paid in BTC it only means that you will receive BTC in value of that JPY claim. The claim in BTC was set to fixed price - I guess it was as 480 USD per BTC - well, let's say roughly 500 USD it, so if you had there 10 BTC, you should receive 2.5 BTC if price is 2000 USD. In other words now it doesn't matter if you had BTC there or not, everything is now JPY claim. But technically speaking cash holders are still in better position there in terms of possible return so those who say you should've take dollars are right. Because BTC was traded for 900 USD during crash but they set price based in crash time. You are not only one who did that "mistake". Only exception would be if BTC goes let's say 10,000 USD and they would change BTC claim set price. But there is small chance they will change it like that.
Something like this needs to be changed in the years to come. That's not a fair way of doing it considering the volatility of Bitcoin. :(
Question is how this should be done. It's not that easy make everyone happy. Personally I like the way how Bitfinex did it. To emit loss tokens and earn the missing money back.