CoinLab To Demand Rehabilitation From Mt. Gox

By Rishma Banerjee

Mt. Gox, a cryptocurrency exchange which has frequently been in the news, for its heist, is back again, with a new POA when it comes to the civil rehabilitation program. The end of this month is when the next court hearing on the same topic has been scheduled and this time the court will have to decide if the victims of the hack should be the first ones to be able to reclaim their loss or not.

Latest reports suggest that, Peter Vessenes, the co-founder of CoinLab and former Chair at Bitcoin Foundation, is an active participant in this rehabilitation program as well. The former chair has claimed over  1.6 trillion in Japanese Yen, which comes down to around $16 billion. If this claim is indeed passed by the court, then there would will be a huge impact on the funds left for the victims of the hack.

Daniel Kelman, an attorney who was one of the first to notice the claims took to Twitter to say:

“Peter @vessenes is now confirmed as the party claiming ¥1.6 JPY in damages from MtGox. He apparently thinks MtGox victims should get nothing”

However, what  is noteworthy is that this is not the first time CoinLab is appealing for claims from Mt. Gox. As precedence indicates,  the two have had an edgy relationship in the past. CoinLab had first filed a lawsuit against the exchange back in 2013, which was months before the hack. The lawsuit was filed over allegations that the exchange had breached a partner contract for the U.S and Canada by not disclosing information pertaining to their existing clients.

Mt. Gox was noted as one of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges in the world, as the platform handled over 70% of all of Bitcoins transactions. However, they soon had to go through a security breach, which resulted in the loss of over 7% of Bitcoins, which basically translates to 750,000 of customers funds and 100,000 of its own funds, worth around $475 million. This eventually led the exchange to file for bankruptcy with the Tokyo District Court.