The top Mt. Gox creditor chose to have an early payout in Bitcoin (BTC), deciding against waiting longer for an even larger payment.
Mt. Gox Investment Fund, the largest creditor of the defunct crypto exchange, reportedly decided to take its chances with a lesser but earlier payout rather than waiting for all the legal processes to be resolved. This means that the creditor will be paid by September this year instead of potentially waiting another nine years before getting their funds back.
According to Bloomberg, opting for the earlier payout means that the creditor will receive 90% of what’s due to them, and the bankruptcy trustee doesn’t have to sell tokens to acquire fiat funds for the payment since the creditor also chose to be paid in BTC. This will ease market concerns because token sales of that magnitude could potentially have a negative impact on the crypto market.
Other creditors of the exchange also have until March 10 to decide whether they want to wait for a larger payment percentage or take the earlier repayment in September.
Related: Mt. Gox creditors dismiss rumors of massive Bitcoin dump
On Jan. 6, Mt. Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi urged creditors to complete the necessary steps before the deadline. Kobayashi wrote that creditors who fail to do so will not be able to receive their funds or will have to bring documents to the head office in Japan and receive payments in Japanese yen.
Mt. Gox used to be considered the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world before it went bankrupt in 2014 after 750,000 of its customer’s BTC and 100,000 of its own Bitcoin were stolen. At the time of the incident, the funds were only worth around $473 million. However, at current market prices, it’s worth around $20 billion.