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The Mt. Gox rehabilitation trustee has extended the Mt. Gox repayment deadline to October 31, 2026—just days before the previous October 31, 2025, cutoff was set to expire—marking another delay in the decade-long effort to compensate creditors of the collapsed Bitcoin exchange.
While partial repayments totaling over 100,000 BTC have been distributed since July 2024, approximately 34,690 BTC worth $4 billion remain in the estate as thousands of verified claims await final settlement.
In the statement, the court-appointed rehabilitation trustee confirmed that while many creditors had already received partial repayments including base, early lump-sum, and intermediate payments which is a significant number of verified claims remain unsettled.
As it is desirable to make the repayments to such rehabilitation creditors to the extent reasonably practicable, the Rehabilitation Trustee, with the permission of the court, has changed the deadline, the official announcement read.
The move underscores the complexity of executing the Mt. Gox repayment process, which involves thousands of creditors spread across multiple jurisdictions and a mix of assets from Bitcoin (BTC) to Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and fiat currencies.
Founded in 2010, Mt. Gox once handled over 70% of global Bitcoin trading volume, becoming the world’s largest exchange during the early years of cryptocurrency adoption.
That dominance abruptly ended in February 2014, when the exchange filed for bankruptcy in Japan after announcing it had lost approximately 850,000 BTC (then worth around $450 million) due to a prolonged hacking incident.
Later investigations revealed that 200,000 BTC were eventually recovered, leaving 650,000 BTC unaccounted for. The remaining assets have since been managed by the Japanese court system under a rehabilitation process initiated in 2018 and approved in 2021, paving the way for partial redemptions in 2024.
Mt. Gox remains a painful reminder of the crypto industry’s early vulnerabilities, said Tatsuya Mori, professor of cybersecurity at Meiji University. The ongoing repayment delays illustrate how regulatory and logistical barriers can drag even well-intentioned restitution efforts for years.
The latest Mt. Gox repayment delay has reignited market debate about the potential impact of eventual large-scale Bitcoin disbursements. Some traders fear that once repayments resume, recipients may liquidate their assets, potentially driving down Bitcoin’s price.
According to Arkham Intelligence, the Mt. Gox estate currently holds around 34,690 BTC, valued at roughly $4 billion which is a sharp drop of over 75% from the 142,000 BTC balance recorded in mid-2024. This reduction stems from the partial repayments made earlier this year.
However, several analysts argue that fears of a massive sell-off are overstated.
“Most Mt. Gox creditors are long-term Bitcoin believers,” said Matt Zhang, founder of Hivemind Capital Partners. “Many are likely to hold rather than sell, especially given the asset’s appreciation since 2014.”
Indeed, market data from CryptoQuant suggests that Bitcoin’s liquidity profile and institutional presence are now robust enough to absorb potential selling pressure. Earlier analysis by on-chain researcher Patrick Tan also projected that any post-repayment volatility would likely be “short-lived and largely symbolic.”
The new Mt. Gox repayment timeline means that creditors many of whom have waited more than a decade will now need to exercise further patience. The trustee has committed to processing repayments “as soon as practicable,” implying that some disbursements may still occur before the 2026 deadline.
The extended timeline also reflects the intricate legal and technical steps involved. Claims verification, wallet confirmations, and compliance checks continue to slow the pace of distributions. Moreover, fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices add an additional layer of complexity to determining accurate fiat conversion values for creditors.
The process may seem frustrating, but from a legal standpoint, caution is necessary to avoid errors or disputes, noted Junichi Saito, a Tokyo-based bankruptcy lawyer familiar with rehabilitation proceedings. Given the volume of transactions and global nature of claimants, the Mt. Gox repayment cannot simply be rushed.
For many in the crypto community, this delay represents both progress and stagnation progress, because partial payments have already begun after years of gridlock, and stagnation, because full restitution remains years away.
Still, some creditors have expressed cautious optimism online, noting that the trustee’s transparency and cooperation with Japanese courts mark a significant improvement from earlier years of uncertainty.
As of now, the Mt. Gox repayment process is expected to continue gradually through 2025 and 2026. Industry observers believe that, if completed successfully, the conclusion of Mt. Gox’s bankruptcy could mark a symbolic end to crypto’s early “wild west” era.
The Mt. Gox repayment, despite delays, represents a major test of institutional accountability in crypto, said Kazuya Hirai, a blockchain policy researcher at the University of Tokyo.
It will set a precedent for how future insolvencies are managed, especially as digital assets become more integrated with global finance.
While the journey has been long and fraught with setbacks, the latest update offers a reminder of how far the industry has come and how much remains to be done to restore full trust in its foundations.
