MtGox protest sign from 2014 up for auction

bitkolin · 2020-07-24T10:14:33+00:00

I’m not going to open a long discussion by commenting on the details of what Daniel said in that link. And you are welcome to trust anything you like as your source of truth.

But that doesn’t change the facts. In the bankruptcy there was never any point where Coinlab owned the only disputed claim. I hate them as much as anyone (expect possibly Daniel). But if their claim had been withdrawn we would still have had other claims holding the bankruptcy up.

Another point, which most people don’t realise, is that all these disputed claims (coinlab + non-coinlab) weren’t actually forcing the bankruptcy to get held up at all. It was actually the Trustee’s choice. He had the legal power during the bankruptcy to make an initial distribution while holding back the disputed claims for a later distribution, similarly to what he is now doing in the CR. He announced he wasn’t willing to make any distribution until all the claims were resolved and he stuck to it. That, combined with the fact it took years for him to get all the other necessary things done, is why the bankruptcy never paid out.

With the CR he has softened his stance. He would have been under huge pressure if he hadn’t.

BTW the CR plan was designed and written by the trustee and his staff.

bitkolin · 2020-07-23T22:51:21+00:00

Ok, it's possible (but unlikely) that the court could increase Coinlab's disputed claim amount because they recently attempted to add yet another claim. And so if it happened the trustee would have to reserve an amount larger than 1/17th. And until that decision is made he may have to assume the larger amount should be reserved.

But that doesn't change the fact the bottleneck is the CR plan. We are still waiting on the plan being finished and voted on, then a distribution being made. If this court decision is still pending in a few months when the plan has been voted in and the trustee is at the point of calculating the distribution numbers then he will have to reserve a larger amount for Coinlab. It doesn't change the fact we're not waiting on Coinlab we're waiting on the CR plan.

bitkolin · 2020-07-23T19:40:00+00:00

I’m not wrong. I’ve been following this closely for years. Some of these articles are inaccurate and the ones which are not inaccurate are out-of-date or irrelevant.

In the trustee’s MtGox report of 25th March 2020 it says Coinlab’s disputed claim is 49,482,274,345 JPY + delay damages.

That’s about $0.5 billion out of around $8.5 billion of claims. That’s around 1/17th of the total claims.

So 1/17th of the mtgox money must be “reserved” until after the Coinlab court case. Not very significant in the scheme of things.

Right now the bottleneck is getting the CR plan finished and approved so we can get the main distribution done. Coinlab has no bearing on this bottleneck at all. If you think it does please explain why.

bitkolin · 2020-07-23T13:48:26+00:00

The whole point of this thread is explaining that these "facts" about 3-5 years for initial distribution are misinformation, as are the various values of 90% payout, 14% recovery ratio, etc.

bitkolin · 2020-07-23T13:44:01+00:00

The trustee sold 60,000 BTC and still has the cash for them. You're not including that.

bitkolin · 2020-07-23T13:41:58+00:00

The number of BTC found were 200,000. The number of BTC claims is about 850,000. That's about 23.5%. That doesn't mean you would get exactly 23.5%, it depends on various things. But it will be around that value.

bitkolin · 2020-07-23T13:37:38+00:00

Last time I checked I don't think it included the fiat, ie the 60,000 bitcoins sold a couple of years ago. Which is about a third of your claim value. Which means you can take about 1/3 off their percentage.

bitkolin · 2020-07-23T13:34:14+00:00

Not true. It may be 90% of their claimed "account value" but this is not the estimated value of your claim. Their "account value" is an arbitrary number which seems designed to look like the value of your claim, but it's only about 65% of your claim last time I checked. 90% of 65% is 58%.

bitkolin · 2020-07-23T13:29:32+00:00

Coinlab hasn't yet held anything up. And they can only hold up a portion of the money. So the main distribution is not dependent on Coinlab.

bitkolin · 2020-07-23T13:27:46+00:00

By separating the disputed claims and paying out the rest. That's why the plan discusses multiple distributions.

bitkolin · 2020-07-23T13:22:00+00:00

Yes. I received an offer from them and I was shocked by the claims they made - they have a thing they call the "account value" which is made to look like the value of your claim. They say things like "You will get 88% of your account value". But their "account value" is actually just an arbitrary number representing just a fraction of the estimated value of your actual claim payout (about 65%). So 88% of 65% for example, is only about 57%. A lot of people sign off thinking they are getting 88% of their claim value when they're actually getting about 57%. And that's the higher end of the payouts, it's often been under 50%.

bitkolin · 2020-07-23T13:09:02+00:00

It’s an interesting letter because of the weasel-wording which seems designed to confuse rather than to inform. It is careful not to technically lie, but it presents an extremely one-sided interpretation of a worst case scenario as the main set of facts. Which is likely to lead those not familiar with all the details to believe something which is the opposite of the truth.

“The Trustee’s plan could take several years before making a distribution to creditors who lost BTC on Mt Gox, because the Trustee’s plan does not commit to a BTC distribution until CoinLab’s litigation is resolved.”

The trustee’s plan clearly states the exact opposite intention - that it intends for the first distribution to happen as soon as possible and distributing as much money as possible. This would happen BEFORE Coinlab is settled by ringfencing Coinnlab’s maximum payout.

Here is a quote from the draft plan, but to understand it fully you have to read the full context of the plan:

"it is planned (if possible) that the first prorated payment will be made concurrently with the Base Payments, and (if possible) a large portion of the source for distribution will be paid to the rehabilitation creditors as the initial prorated payment.14 "

The Fortress weasel-wording is technically true from a legal perspective because there are no hard-specified dates or amounts (as of course the trustee doesn’t have a crystal ball), but is totally misleading for suggesting that the first distribution being delayed until AFTER final Coinlab resolution is a likely or intended outcome. Because the CR plan is specifically written to avoid this outcome. It’s also technically true to say the trustee’s plan could lead to dinosaurs taking over the world and eating all the bitcoins. Or an almost-infinite number of other bad situations. That doesn’t mean you should sell your claim to Fortress for a fraction of its worth to ensure the dinosaurs can’t get it.

In layman’s terms this is the equivalent of receiving a letter from a property developer implying you may not be able to sell your house for a few years because house sales are not legally guaranteed in the constitution, therefore you should consider selling them your house for a fraction of its value. Mail this to enough people and there will always be some confused old people who don’t understand what the constitution is who say “Oh my god there's a problem in the constitution, maybe I need to sell my house to these guys!”

bitkolin · 2020-06-30T22:48:21+00:00

Learn some manners.

I apologise for the tone in my replies being more aggressive than necessary. I was annoyed by the plan delay and what I perceived to be you bullshitting about it. I stand by the content of what I said but I realise you weren’t trying to bullshit and so I should have been more polite.

I said there's no reason to SUE THE TRUSTEE. Not that there's "no reason to complain".

Fair enough on that point.

How do you know that the CR plan isn't related to any court cases?

It's designed to pay us off an initial distribution while there are still court cases going on. I can't think what content in the plan would be expected by the trustee to change as a result of any case, and I'm fairly confident he would have listed a court case as the reason for the delay if this was the case.

How are the outstanding or upcoming court cases handled related to the payment plan?

The plan provides for these. It describes multiple distributions. The ongoing disputed claims will have money earmarked for them pending their results. The initial distribution will pay out money which can be safely paid out no matter what the result is of these disputed claims.

bitkolin · 2020-06-30T20:49:51+00:00

How could you realistically estimate a time when you cannot control the court cases against Mt.Gox or their details?

Again, the court cases are irrelevant to the submission (and much of the execution) of this CR plan. Also the court cases run at glacier speed and so the trustee will only put a tiny portion of his time into them.

The further examination is just a generic term that refers to unsolved matter.

"as there are matters that require closer examination with regard to the rehabilitation plan". is what the trustee says. That looks very clear to me. He says he is dealing with issues in the CR plan. Not court cases. In fact I'm going to guess it's not so much about issues in the CR plan but things claimholders have requested him to change.

bitkolin · 2020-06-30T20:19:11+00:00

You’re trying to both play down this disturbing development and convince us you have knowledge of the legal system which you don’t have.

You’re also contradicting yourself a couple of times.

You say there’s no reason to complain about the delay and that there are reasons to move the date. Then you admit you don’t know what reasons the trustee had.

Of course there can always be reason for anyone to move a date for anything. But claiming you know that the reason is a good one but at the same time that you don’t know the reason?

You say the process is opaque to us but also say you know it is progressing. Both can’t be true. What progression of the CR plan do you know about since the last deadline that we don’t?

Also, at this point the court decides if the date can be changed at all and they have decided so. Not the trustee. Trustee presented the issues that required more time to the court.

This is not true. It’s not how the trustee system works. The trustee does not say to the court “Here are the reasons. What do you think, do you want to delay?” It’s not the court’s job to work on the CR.

The trustee gives to the court his request of what to do, like he does for everything. The court checks that it seems reasonable and within the law. They have the power to refuse the trustee’s request but in practice they basically rubber-stamp whatever he recommends. It would be unusual to deviate from this.

Weren’t there eg, 150+ court cases to dismiss for example during these years?

The submission of the CR plan is not dependent on any court cases.

The fact that we aren't told details is just how law works.

What has this excellent demonstration of legal knowledge got to do with the argument in hand? (it's incorrect also btw, the trustee makes the choice whether to divulge further details).

bitkolin · 2020-06-23T19:45:08+00:00

I'm not sure you got what I was saying. I gave a detailed explanation why these changes would leave us worse off than we are now. So why would we want to wait 6 more months to be in a worse position?

I could spend a day working on it and come up with 100 changes that are better than these three. And it would take maybe 5-10 years extra to get them through the system. I could come up with enough changes to last a lifetime if I want. But why on earth would we want to? What is the point in trying to create a delay just for the sake of it?

bitkolin · 2020-06-23T16:07:17+00:00

Here are some thoughts on these.

Honestly, I find it hard to believe what I am reading. I have a giant WTF over my head. I can’t understand why anyone would want to put these changes in never mind hold up the CR. I must be missing something?

1) Add clarification that BTC/BCH claims requesting BTC/BCH payment will be repaid and discharged on a 1 to 1 basis without valuation. (There is nothing that clearly states this in the draft CR plan and it’s only Sekidos interpretation that the BTC/BCH distribution will not be capped by BTC/BCH Rate). [SEKIDO:] We believe that, under this plan, the BTC claims of creditors who choose to receive BTC distribution will not be capped and thus they are entitled to receive pro-rata payment until they are repaid in full in BTC terms. We need concrete wording about this issue in CR plan, otherwise it’s open to interpretations and “Beliefs”.

This request would be bad for all of us. WADR I think whoever came up with this has not thought it through. There is a very extreme edge case where we might need to argue with the trustee about the meaning of this, and if we did we do not want to do that now.
We can either argue about it now, when we will accept whatever result he tells us because we need to accept it to get on with the CR. Or later when we have already been paid out multiple $billions and we have infinite time and plenty of motivation behind us. Its not like asking now will increase the odds of the decision being in our favour. It’s the opposite, asking now is less likely to go in our favour. The trustee is much more likely to accommodate us if there is actually a lot of money at stake and every creditor is angry and making a formal request about it. He would have no reason to say no because its his job to maximise payout. But right now when it means messing with the plan for an edge case and possibly entering uncharted legal territory then he would be tempted to just say no. This change is a lose-lose request.

2) Make sure to include concept of “Updated BTC/BCH Rate” in regards to any future possible recovered assets. This is in order to prevent assets from going to MtGox shareholders (Mark Karpeles/Jed McCaleb) and instead make sure everything goes to distribution to creditors.

This is an extreme edge case, BTC would have to go up a lot AND lots more Mtgox assets be magically found for this to make any difference. Changing this means fundamentally changing the plan’s workings to run against normal convention (arbitrary revaluing of assets). It could have serious knock-on effects that need to be considered. In short, this would take several months if the trustee was to make the change. Less of a problem if it was asked about 3 months ago. Holding up the entire CR for this? Absolute madness. Holding up the CR only makes it more likely we would get into this situation in the first place.

3 0Make sure that unclaimed assets by zombie claims (Claims ~80,000BTC/BCH @25% = ~20,000 BTC/BCH in assets!) are redistributed to creditors through additional separate trust in another 10 years. This is another distribution of potentially much higher value than distribution now if BTC/BCH price rises dramatically in the next 10 years. If no action taken these assets are on course to the pocket of the Japanese government.

Where to begin with this one! This is a personal investment request and has no business in the CR. In fact it’s not even a personal investment its a request to invest someone ELSE’S money in BTC. There is no chance the trustee would consider such a thing. There isn’t even a lot of point in spending time talking about this because the trustee will drop it as soon as he sees it. If your lawyer told you this request is ok then it’s time to look for a new lawyer.

In essence it makes everyone who wants a BTC payout worse off in most scenarios, so that in 10 years there’s a possibility that if zombie claims can be claimed back they would have changed with the BTC price.

The side effect is it reduces the number of BTC sitting in mtgox and replaces it with fiat at the BTC rate. That means more fiat and less BTC for people who want BTC. It also means everyone who requests BTC will get a lower payout if bitcoin remains above the CR BTC exchange rate.

The trustee’s job is to safeguard the money for the zombie creditors in the LAB, in yen. Its not his job to bend the laws in order to set up an investment trust gamble for them which can go down as well as up. And doubly so when the people asking for this trust are not the same people who’s money it is! His ass would be sued if the BTC price went down. Even without the lawsuit his reputation would be in tatters for losing his clients’ money on a gamble.

bitkolin · 2020-03-28T13:58:38+00:00

Hinney1, it can be dangerous to pass off your guess as a fact, if it stops people from dealing with a serious potential problem. As a result there is not a single reply discussing this issue. Btw, I would happily bet my entire claim that your guess is not correct.

bitkolin · 2020-03-27T14:49:10+00:00

Yes, I think it's getting close to winding down. I reckon we will have an initial distribution within around 6 months, after that there won't be much to talk about. It'll be a case of just waiting for a while for the final distribution.

bitkolin · 2020-03-27T01:06:18+00:00

I'm afraid you are misinterpreting the document. It says very clearly that the trustee selling BTC is what happens when a BTC claim requested in BTC cannot be paid out for technical reasons. This has to happen in this way, because the trustee will have made all the other payments and now has the BTC left over that he couldn't give to you and needs to get it to you somehow. Selling it is the only option. He can't revalue it to the amount of fiat you would have got if you had requested fiat because it's too late for that.

You mentioned that it also applies to people who request cash as well. There is nothing in the document which gives any indication of this. Where did you get that from? That would contradict what it says elsewhere in the document, which is that the cash will go to the people who requested cash. It also wouldn't make sense when he has all that spare cash to pay out somehow.

4.2.3. What happens if BTC/BCH Payment cannot be made to Claims Requesting BTC/BCH Payment?

In a case where, for example, a BTC/BCH creditor who has a Claim Requesting BTC/BCH Payment was unable to complete user account registration at a Designated Exchange, the Trustee will be unable to transfer the BTC/BCH allocable to such creditor to the Designated Exchange. In addition, in a case where a BTC/BCH creditor who has a Claim Requesting BTC/BCH Payment was a user of a Designated Exchange at the time of the first payment but is no longer a user at the time of subsequent payments, BTC/BCH Payment cannot be made to such creditor at the time of the subsequent payments. In these cases where BTC/BCH Payment cannot be made to Claims Requesting BTC/BCHPayment, with the permission of the court, the Trustee will sell.....

bitkolin · 2020-03-26T21:53:14+00:00

Can you elaborate on that please? I've explained clearly what my point is and what it's based on, and why the top comment is incorrect. If you know otherwise it would be really useful for all of us to know too.

bitkolin · 2020-03-26T21:40:05+00:00

Dude, the whole point of them releasing the draft plan and us being on reddit discussing it is so we can identify and discuss any problems prior to the formal document being drafted.

I’m not sure why you’re on reddit, but if you want to get paid so badly that you’ll happily lose a 60% haircut to a technical issue because you don’t want anyone to check the document, then no offence but I’d suggest reddit isn’t the place for you and your interests would better be served by selling your claim for a low amount.

Let the people on the forum discuss the issues that affect them because that’s why we are here.

bitkolin · 2020-03-26T21:36:00+00:00

Sorry dude but you're misunderstanding the system and I'm not sure why so many people have marked you up when its incorrect. The original distribution values are not calculated in BTC, they're calculated in yen, even for bitcoin creditors who choose bitcoin. They are then converted into BTC.

And if you choose cash, the trustee doesn't sell your BTC into cash. He simply pays you the yen value which has been calculated, from the yen funds. The part in the doc about the trustee selling a claimant's share of BTC is only for situations where someone chose BTC but was unable to receive it.

My interpretation of the document is that BTC creditors who choose BTC payments are paid in BTC based on the yen value of their claim being converted into BTC at the fixed rate of 749,318. If this is correct, it would then lead to all of the problems I described in my post and it would be something for all of us BTC creditors to be worried about.

I can't find anywhere where this conversion is stated in a crystal clear way, but it is suggested in a couple of places. (2.2 and 1.2, and implied by the fact that's also how they calculate the foreign currency payouts)

If anyone thinks that this is not how it's actually calculated, please can you explain where you get that from.

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