Bitcoin Market Impact From Mt. Gox Repayments Will Be Limited: Matrixport

Bitcoin BTC$66,696.82 slid 8% during the U.S. afternoon Wednesday on rumors that wallets tied to defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox and the U.S. government are making transactions, crypto-services provider Matrixport said in a report Thursday.

Matrixport says it has analyzed the potential market impact of the Mt. Gox haul and concluded that such an event would have limited effect on the bitcoin price. Still, investors should be well aware of the eventual distribution of those bitcoins, it said.

The Mt. Gox hack resulted in the theft of 850,000 bitcoins, valued at $500 million at the time and now worth $17.8 billion, the report said, noting that only 200,000 have been recovered.

“Since not all of the stolen BTC could be recovered, only a fraction of the original amount held by creditors will be compensated,” wrote Markus Thielen, head of research.

Creditors will receive a base payment with four options to receive the remainder of their funds, the note said.

These include “early lump-sum repayment (where customers can recover 15%-20% of their lost funds), repayment by bank remittance, repayment for a portion of crypto rehabilitation claims in crypto, or repayment through a fund transfer service provider,” the note added.

Sept. 30 is the deadline for repayments, the report said, with $1.7 billion in cash, 141,000 bitcoin and another 142,000 BCH$559.68 to be distributed as part of a civil rehabilitation plan.

Bitcoin was trading at around $28,920 at publication time.

Read more: Mt. Gox Bankruptcy Repayments Unlikely to Destabilize Bitcoin: UBS