Fortress Investment Group has increased its offer to purchase claims from creditors who lost money in the infamous $480 million Mt. Gox hack. The group, which aims to profit by eventually recovering the Bitcoin (BTC), upped its offer on the cryptocurrency to 88% of the estimated account value.
Cointelegraph has reported previously how Fortress calculated offers to creditors. The latest offer of $1300 is significantly higher than the $755 offered in December due to the recent increase in Bitcoin’s value.
However, the offer is still discounted “due to the likely timeline (3 to 5 years) and financial risk of the ongoing litigations,” according to Michael Hourigan, a managing director at Fortress.
How did this happen to such a powerful crypto exchange like Mt. Gox?
The crypto exchange went bankrupt in 2014 after investors collectively lost 850,000 Bitcoin, or roughly 7% of the total existing supply at the time. CEO Mark Karpeles was charged with embezzlement and falsifying data, but — remarkably — received a rare not-guilty verdict in the Japanese court for the more serious charges.
Mt. Gox is no longer in bankruptcy, partly as a result of this verdict, which has given creditors the opportunity to reclaim some of their losses. As of October 2019, Mt. Gox has reported that 56 people have filed such petitions in the Tokyo District Court.