The trustee of bankrupt Mt. Gox will begin repaying the firm’s creditors in cash shortly, according to an email reportedly sent to some claimants this week and obtained by CryptoSlate. The email reads,

“The Rehabilitation Trustee plans to commence repayment to creditors shortly.”

Per the email, the payment will commence within the 2023 calendar year and continue into next year due to the large number of creditors and other reasons that could impact the process.

As such, the Mt. Gox rehabilitation trustee said:

“The specific timing of repayment to individual rehabilitation creditors is undetermined, and therefore, it will not be possible to provide advance notice to each rehabilitation creditor regarding the specific timing of their repayment.”

Meanwhile, this payment will come nearly a decade after the exchange collapsed. In 2014, Mt. Gox, one of the pioneer exchanges in the crypto industry, suffered a catastrophic hack that resulted in the loss of 850,000 Bitcoin (BTC), now valued at more than $31 billion based on the current price of the flagship digital asset.

Following this incident, the company filed for bankruptcy protection and engaged in rehabilitation proceedings since 2018. Its bankruptcy process is aimed at compensating creditors affected by the hack.

Despite these efforts, impacted users have encountered prolonged delays and uncertainty regarding the return of their funds as repayment plans have been repeatedly postponed due to legal disputes and other reasons.

For context, Mt. Gox extended the deadline for rehabilitation creditor repayments by a year in September to Oct. 31, 2024.