Creditors of the defunct Mt. Gox exchange, including thousands across Europe still waiting on bitcoin owed to them since the platform collapsed in 2014, will have to wait longer. A Japanese court has approved a 12-month extension to the repayment deadline, moving it from October 31, 2026 to October 31, 2027.
The extension was secured by Nobuaki Kobayashi, the trustee overseeing the Mt. Gox civil rehabilitation process, after legal representatives for the estate asked the competent court to modify the formal schedule and grant additional time.
According to the legal representation, the delay stems from unfinished paperwork on the creditor side rather than any new dispute over funds. "Many rehabilitation creditors have not yet received their refunds because they have not completed the procedures necessary to receive payments," the representatives said, adding that this is "due to various reasons, such as problems arising during the cancellation process."
Mt. Gox, once the world's dominant bitcoin exchange, disappeared twelve years ago after a massive hack that left users without access to their holdings. The subsequent rehabilitation process has stretched across more than a decade, with repayments arriving in stages rather than as a single settlement.
What has already been paid
The estate has largely completed three phases of disbursement: the Base Payment, the Early Lump-Sum Payment, and the Intermediate Payment. The latest extension concerns the remaining balance still owed to creditors who have not yet finalised the steps required to receive their funds.
Kobayashi, who has overseen the process since its early stages, indicated that completing outstanding repayments remains the objective within the new timeframe, saying the estate intends to proceed "to the extent reasonably feasible."
A familiar pattern of delay
For European creditors, many of whom have tracked the case since the exchange's collapse, the extension is the latest in a series of schedule revisions that have repeatedly pushed back final settlement. The brief does not specify how many creditors remain affected or how much bitcoin is still outstanding, and the trustee's filing did not detail the specific administrative problems causing delays in individual cases.
What is confirmed is the new date: creditors now have until October 31, 2027, rather than the previously set deadline of October 31, 2026, to complete the procedures required to receive their repayments, as the rehabilitation process enters its thirteenth year.
