In the countdown to the new year, individual equity and hedge fund manager Fortress Investment  Group is redoubling its efforts to buy up Bitcoin (BTC) claims from Mt. Gox creditors.

A Bloomberg report on December. 19 alleged that Fortress'southward offer is now roughly 13.5% lower than an initial bid it extended to creditors before this year — down to $778 per Bitcoin claim equally opposed to a former $900. Creditors take until December. 31 to decide whether to accept the firm's proposal.

A drawn-out process

As Cointelegraph has previously reported, roughly 24,000 creditors are idea to have been affected by Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox's 2022 hack and later collapse in early on 2022, which resulted in the loss of 850,000 BTC valued at roughly $460 1000000 at the time.

Reimbursement of the exchange'south creditors is being handled under the stewardship of Tokyo chaser Nobuaki Kobayashi, who was appointed by a Japanese court to act every bit the civil rehabilitation trustee to manage Mt. Gox'due south defalcation estate.

This compensation procedure — notwithstanding positive indications from Kobayashi earlier this twelvemonth — has proved to be protracted and thus far open-ended, galvanizing creditors and other community members to self-organize in an endeavour to quicken the process.

Equally evidence of Fortress's renewed intentions to buy back creditors' claims, Bloomberg says it has obtained a one-folio proposal from the firm, via a source who was non authorized to officially speak on the matter.

The certificate allegedly argues that two ongoing lawsuits existence pursued against the Mt. Gox Estate "threaten to delay and dilute distributions" of creditors' claims.

Fortress has reportedly claimed that 1–2 years are expected to expire before an initial ruling from a estimate is delivered, adding, "Both litigants would then have an option to appeal, which could take an additional 2-3 years."

To calculate its buyback offer, Fortress has allegedly multiplied the number of Bitcoins lost by each creditor by 15% (the corporeality currently bachelor for reimbursement of the lost funds) and multiplied it by the current price of Bitcoin. In its letter, the firm pledged to make the payment within iii days of any given claim transfer.

Dither and delay

Bitcoin was trading at roughly $10,900 at the time of Fortress' initial offer this summer of $900 per claim. Every bit of the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading close to $7,200.

This April, Andy Pag — the founder and coordinator of the largest group of Mt. Gox creditors, Mt. Gox Legal — revealed he had quit his post and decided to sell his merits for an instant payout from a buyer offering $600.

He noted at the time that he expected reimbursement to be likely to take a farther 18–24 months or longer, pointing, similar Fortress, to the delay incurred by outstanding lawsuits against the onetime exchange.