Can you break the dish? We talked to mentougou's creditors

Vallely trading platform MT. Bigger, born earlier than the etheric fang, arguably, the because BaoLei should stop taking trading platform, like block chain projects at the same time, should not be in the range of investors focused on the early, otherwise, the reality from a few years ago the loss of old players, to this year's new entry leeks, have had to once accounted for 80% of the world's currency trading transaction platform, focus on.

The reason is very simple, the old players are waiting to lose money, the new chives afraid to smash the plate.

Six years ago, firecoin and OKEx were far from their current size. As the absolute head platform of the cryptocurrency exchange platform at that time, mentougou exchange platform shocked the world by revealing that it had lost 850,000 bitcoins. Now its performance at that time is no less than luckin coffee self-exposed turnover fraud. Luckin's $2.2 billion fraud was nearly half its annual turnover, while mentougou's 850,000 lost bitcoins accounted for 7% of bitcoin flow at the time. Luckin's shares fell 80% and mentougou sent the global commodity bitcoin down 20%.

In fact, in recent years, there has been a violent event on the trading platform. FCoin is an example at hand. The victims have tried their best to get the assets back. Over time, self-denial may be the last option for most people.

However, although the mentougou storm encryption history of the most serious thunder, but did not let the victims lose hope, and even some victims are still grateful for the mentougou, a long process of compensation, but let them passive position.

From the declaration of bankruptcy liquidation to give compensation program, the whole process stuck for six years, mentougou is not to say not to pay back the money, just the debt and repayment program to confirm the process, the difficulty is too big.

Last week, a compensation package that was due to be submitted to the court at the end of the month was delayed for another four months when it came close to being finalized in July.

In 6 years, mentougou has been transformed from a trading platform into a custodian institution holding more than 100,000 bitcoins. It has also been "threatening" the encryption industry for many years.

Let's start with the creditor's point of view.

"It feels like a drop in the sky"

"Mt.Gox was used because it was the deep, high-volume trading platform on the market at the time, and it could also be directly linked to a bank card to make a purchase." In April 2013, also in the United States founder DappReview NiuFengXuan from friends heard the COINS, watched the currency price from a few dollars up to $250, he come in soon.

The performance of bitcoin did not disappoint him. From the second half of that year to December, the price of bitcoin soared from more than $100 to $1,000. At that time, niu gradually transferred the currency to Coinbase, because he thought the interface of mentougou was "really ugly, it felt like a website ten years ago". Unexpectedly, this casual move to let him escape a bullet.

At the end of 2013, niu fengxuan began to "switch" to Coinbase and test the transfer currency.

In early 2014, mentougou suddenly reported a "withdrawal delay" and a "mad run," and on Feb. 25, an internal document called "Crisis Stategy Drafy" leaked out, stating that "we had stolen 74,408 bitcoins in a major bitcoin theft." After a flurry of rumors and panic, officials announced the theft and confirmed that the missing assets included 100,000 bitcoins, in addition to the bitcoin.

850,000 bitcoins, or 7% of the total in circulation at the time. Although the follow-up from the cold wallet recovered about 200,000 pieces, but a drop in the ocean, the user's assets in the platform, it can be said that overnight "ashes".

It is understood that the mentougou platform has more than 100,000 victims, among which Chinese users account for 30 to 40 percent, and many of the victims are large, the most serious victims, lost 40,000 bitcoin.

< / p > < p > after the news, but also calm, after a period of time before the transfer, his mentougou account has less than ten COINS, the loss is not heavy.

Zhou LAN (not her real name), another investor, has hundreds of COINS on mentougou, none of which are available. In fact, he had already found mentougou difficult to withdraw money, but found it was too late to operate, after seeing mentougou exposed the news, he quickly account for the other COINS into BTC, a total of several hundred.

Some investors who couldn't get their money back sued mentougou and its CEO Mark Karpeles, and the Tokyo district court appointed lawyer shinaki kobayashi as a liquidation trustee while accepting the lawsuit. The repayment plan is to pay out on the 200,000 or so bitcoins left in the platform, a huge amount of selling that the secondary market fears and has long seen as a hidden "bomb" in the cryptographic market.

"We were asked by the prosecutor whether to pay in fiat or bitcoin, and I chose bitcoin." Zhou LAN said. There are two options for this compensation plan: to lose money or to lose money. Where does the money come from?

"In fact, at its high point in 2017, prosecutors sold about 70,000 COINS." Zhou told us that, apparently, most of the money for legal compensation came from this source.

According to public documents, beat BlockBeats found that mentou sold 35,841 BTC and 34,008 BCH from December 2017 to March 7, 2018, recording a total of 42.9 billion yen (approximately us $383 million) (1); From March 7 to June 22, 2018, 24,658 BTC and 25,331 BCH were sold, with a total turnover of 25.976 billion yen (approximately 231 million us dollars) (2).

According to public information, before the first sell-off, the bankruptcy foundation had 166,334 bitcoins and 168,177 BCH (1), and after the second sell-off, the remaining amount was not much different from the number of published cold wallet addresses (the surplus could be stored elsewhere). At present, mentougou platform wallet address, there are about 140,000 yuan.

Now the compensation scheme is still not determined, who does not know the final result, also choose to use legal currency compensation and use currency compensation ratio is also unknown. Zhou LAN made a rough calculation for herself.

Legal coin compensation is based on the price at the time of the accident, sold 70,000 COINS to 600 million us dollars, which basically covers the total legal coin amount of the lost COINS at that time of 475 million us dollars, which may lead to a lot of people choose to pay with legal coin; A victim who chooses to pay in currency may receive more than expected. The jury is still out. The answer won't be known until July. "maybe half and half."

But as rhythm BlockBeats understands, some victims are generally satisfied with the scheme. Six years after the accident, it is expected to be paid, "let me feel like the sky suddenly dropped a sum of money down," in Mr Niu's own words, the compensation scheme is "very conscience".

Who will smash the dish?

The third party involved in the incident, Fortress Investment Group, had to be mentioned in the case of the tie-up.

Since 2017, Fortress Investment Group, an encrypted Investment vehicle, has reportedly sent emails and even paper documents to investors seeking to "buy" bitcoins from their mentou accounts for a price, based on publicly available information about mentou's creditors.

Mr. Zhou has received emails from Fortress more than once. In march, he even received a printout of a paper document sent from overseas.

E-mail received by mentougou creditors

According to Mr. Kobayashi, if the deal is agreed, the two sides will sign an agreement that could put Fortress in touch with the trading platform that helps mentougou liquefy. "If someone is in a hurry to get the money or doesn't want to wait for the day of compensation, they are likely to agree to the transfer."

Despite repeated offers, zhou didn't agree, but he guessed, "there should be investors who agree." In September, Andy Pag, founder of Mt. Gox Legal, a new york-based investment firm, said in an interview that he had transferred bitcoin for $600.

The firm is likely to be Fortress, which is based in New York and has a similar location. In March 2019, Fortress offered $600 for the bitcoins, and the price matched. Last July, Fortress raised the price to $900. By December, they were offering $755. In February, the purchase price had risen to about $1,300 (3). From the point of view of price, the bid basically follows the trend of bitcoin price, and then carries out corresponding "discount".

It is not clear how many bitcoins Fortress has successfully acquired, but with prices and costs varying over time, the arbitrage gains may not become apparent until mentougou pays out.

And the victims who get paid, what do they think?

"Remain holder." That is Mr Niu's answer, which also represents several creditors approached by BlockBeats who say they will hold on.

"Dozens of COINS I transferred to Coinbase were sold for $400 to $500 as early as 2014." If mentougou had not collapsed, the COINS might have been sold and not kept.

Of course, we don't know how many people will choose to pay out, and if these early players are scattered enough and "friendly" enough, there may not be a mass selling crisis any time soon. At least these victims are less likely than they thought to be.

But what about bitcoin's other bifurcated COINS?

The different fates of split COINS

In the draft settlement disclosed last week, there is no mention of Bitcoin SV, BTG and other bifurcated COINS in the alternative payment of cryptographic assets, which will be sold by the foundation and converted into legal currency once the proportion of payments is determined.

COINS bifurcation are gathered in the second half of 2017, at that time, the frenzied encryption speculators rushing, many people are eyeing the currency, "" improved" banner bifurcate, gold COINS in the, COINS, diamonds and so on more than 10 kinds of bifurcate COINS, according to the rules, these COINS are dropped to a bifurcation exists a address of COINS, vallely address is not exceptional also. Although kobayashi last sold in June 2018 at the latest, before this time, however, we did not find any records of the split coin sales in the relevant documents, after inquiry, the public address can also find the split coin.

Bitcoin cash (BCH) was born then, and by November 2018 Bitcoin SV was born. According to the mentougou cold wallet addresses published by CryptoGround, it was found that BCH and Bitcoin SV of the same amount of Bitcoin were also stored in these addresses. According to the draft, Bitcoin SV and other bifurcated COINS will be sold off in full.

For the bifurcation coin except BCH, the fate of selling is inevitable, zhou LAN told rhythm, even if to sell, this cent will enter the market, investors do not know exactly when.

There are plenty of bitcoins, but only BCH and Bitcoin SV are concerned. To a person familiar with the matter and rhythm BlockBeats explanation, at present the bifurcation currency such as COINS gold, diamond, now basically is in a state of "death", "2018 sell-off has been in the past," even if this ten gold COINS into the market, also "what arouses the waves", in other words, no one could face flange.

However, in another way, mentougou storm has been in the past six years, whether it is prison theft, or was attacked by hackers, the user assets affected, although the long way to claim, but the repayment has been going on, if not out of the accident, mentougou incident will be in the second half of this year to end the curtain.

At the same time, we also had to sigh the country of the rule of law, the encryption rules monetary industry still is not clear today, BaoLei trading platform, users still struggling to rights protection, but the accident in Japan vallely six years ago until now is still in communication with the victim, even appeared the phenomenon of victims praise continuously, I think, this should be a question worth considering for each trading platform.

Reference:
(1) https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20180307_report.pdf
(2) https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20180925_announcement_ja.pdf
(3) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-19/fortress-said-to-increase-offer-to-purchase-mt-gox-claims

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