With roughly 24,081 Bitcoin still sitting in wallets tied to the defunct exchange, Mt. Gox has started moving funds again — and the timing could not be more charged.
Deadline Pressure Mounts
The repayment deadline for Mt. Gox creditors is now set for October 31, 2026, the third postponement since the original cutoff of October 31, 2023.
Court approval was required each time the date was pushed back, and the trustee overseeing the case says some creditors have still not received their funds due to unresolved paperwork or procedural problems.
Most payouts have already gone through. Base repayments, early lump-sum payments, and intermediate distributions have been completed for eligible creditors, with around 19,500 of them paid back through platforms like Kraken and Bitstamp as of late March 2025.
116 BTC Lands On Bitstamp
The latest movement involves 116.3 BTC, valued at roughly $8.16 million, transferred directly to Bitstamp.
On-chain data from Arkham Intelligence confirms the transaction, which followed a far larger move earlier this week when 10,422.65 BTC worth around $739 million was shifted to a new wallet beginning with the address prefix “14FEEM.”
The smaller tranche — 116.3 BTC — was later separated from that batch and sent to the exchange.
Whether the Bitstamp transfer is intended to convert funds into fiat for creditor payouts or to distribute BTC directly to creditors through the platform remains unclear, though both have been used in previous distributions.
Markets Respond Sharply
Bitcoin dropped to around $61,300 before recovering above $64,000, with some observers pointing to the Mt. Gox transfers as a contributing factor.
The $739 million movement earlier in the week rattled sentiment first. The subsequent Bitstamp deposit, though much smaller, kept the pressure on.
Mt. Gox collapsed in 2014 after losing about 850,000 BTC in a security breach. The estate set aside for creditor recovery includes 142,000 Bitcoin, 143,000 Bitcoin Cash, and approximately 69 billion Japanese yen in cash.
Still Around $1.55B Left To MoveThe remaining 24,081 BTC under Mt. Gox control is currently worth about $1.55 billion, and every on-chain movement tied to the estate draws immediate scrutiny from traders watching for signs of further selling.
The October deadline gives the trustee roughly five months to wrap up outstanding distributions before the window closes again.
Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView