Angry Investor to Sue Mt. Gox for Refusing to Honor Bitcoin Claims

A disgruntled investor is preparing to take legal action against Mt. Gox, a once-dominant crypto exchange that collapsed in 2014 after cybercriminals stole around 850,000 Bitcoins (BTC) from the platform.

The investor, who goes by the pseudonym Dense_Spite3160 on Reddit, recently shared his experience in a post that quickly gained attention. He claimed that Mt. Gox has refused to honor his rightful claims to a small Bitcoin balance he held before the exchange’s downfall and is now looking to sue the firm to recover his asset.

The Investor’s Story

According to the Thursday post on Reddit, Dense_Spite3160 was an early Bitcoin adopter who mined the crypto asset on a basic laptop. At the time, he stored some of his Bitcoin stash on the exchange and had a modest balance when the company collapsed.

The company was then the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world, handling more than 70% of all Bitcoin transactions globally. However, his experience took a drastic turn when Mt. Gox was hacked and subsequently filed for bankruptcy.

Disheartened by the loss and the legal complexities that followed, Dense_Spite3160 stepped away from the crypto scene altogether, choosing not to follow the recovery efforts led by the exchange’s bankruptcy lawyers.

The Discovery and the Dispute

Years passed, and the investor’s interest in crypto remained dormant until he recently came across news headlines about Mt. Gox finally starting distributing payouts to creditors. This prompted him to check his old email account, where he discovered several messages from the legal teams handling the Mt. Gox insolvency.

One of these emails, dated around 2019, referenced a Z2 creditor number which is evidence that he was indeed recognized as a creditor in the proceedings.

Eager to reclaim his lost Bitcoin, the investor attempted to recover his balance, only to be met with a harsh reality: Mt. Gox had liquidated his account.

The exchange claimed that he had waived his rights to his funds by not responding to the legal notices in time. These notices, he argued, were inadequate and mostly written in Japanese.

Outraged by what he sees as an unjust and unreasonable decision, the investor is now seeking legal assistance to challenge Mt. Gox’s refusal to honor his claims.

He turned to the Reddit community for advice, seeking recommendations for a good lawyer to handle the case.

“So, can anyone recommend a lawyer to help me out? I imagine they’d take a substantial cut of what is recovered,” he wrote.

Mixed Reactions from the Reddit Community

His post was received with mixed reactions from the members of the Reddit community, with some users expressing sympathy while others criticized him for not acting sooner.

One user pointed out that it had been over ten years since Mt. Gox bankruptcy, and that all emails from the exchange were sent in both Japanese and English, contrary to his claim that he only received the Japanese version.

“It is your own fault that you did not take care of it in time. The existing Bitcoin has now been distributed, which pot do you want to get something from now?” the user wrote.

Another Redditor echoed the same sentiment, arguing that suing Mt. Gox would not help recover the lost Bitcoin. They also challenged the investor’s claim that the emails were solely in Japanese, stating that they had received up to 50 emails from Mt. Gox trustees, each accompanied by an English version.

Some users were even more blunt in their responses, telling the investor to accept his losses and move on.

“You just learned your first lesson: It sucks. Get used to it. Thousands of other creditors were able to work throughc the whole process just fine, no matter if they speak any English at all or not, let alone Japanese. So the baseline is that you messed up, and now you gotta own it,” one commenter remarked.

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