Becoming a billionaire after being released from prison? Mt Gox creditors won’t agree

The "Fat Frenchman" who was imprisoned three years ago for the collapse of the Mt Gox exchange has now transformed himself and may become a rich and handsome man worth billions of dollars.

Creditors of Mt Gox are not happy with this. Recently, they jointly filed a new court petition to prevent the CEO of Mt Gox from taking away billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin.

As the Financial Times reported, creditors are seeking to get Mt Gox, which was majority owned by Mark Karpelès (88%), out of bankruptcy and into a new operating state. At the time of the bankruptcy filing, the Gox trustee held 202,195 bitcoins (currently worth about $3.4 billion).

In early 2014, Mt Gox experienced a hacking incident that shocked the entire digital currency community, losing nearly 800,000 bitcoins (worth hundreds of millions of dollars at the time) from its customers. At the time, Mt Gox, the world's largest bitcoin exchange by volume, eventually declared bankruptcy after this incident, and its CEO was subsequently accused of embezzlement and data manipulation.

Under Japan’s current bankruptcy law, if Gox maintains its status quo, it will pay its creditors the dollars they put in in 2014. However, due to the rising price of Bitcoin, this means that Gox (and its majority shareholder Karpelès) will receive a multi-billion dollar windfall.

Creditors argued that Mt Gox could easily pay off its debts with existing Bitcoin.

According to calculations by the Financial Times, after Gox repays its debts, the company will still have more than 173,000 bitcoins left, worth nearly $3 billion.

The Japanese court overseeing Gox's bankruptcy is currently investigating the allegation but has yet to rule.

"Creditors who filed the lawsuit said the outcome could turn into a 'battle of the experts': those working for the bankruptcy trustee argue the current liquidation plan is more stable, while creditors argue their solution is faster and fairer,"

The media reported.

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