According to the former CEO of Mt. Gox, users of the now-defunct crypto exchange between 2010 and 2014 will be entitled to receive nonfungible tokens (NFTs), as a memorial for losses accrued when the exchange was hacked during its functional days.
Mark Karpelès announced on Twitter on Monday that cryptocurrency users who were Mt. Gox customers between 2010 and 2014 when the exchange was hacked and declared bankrupt could register for a free NFT. Users that held a balance or reported losses from the collapsed exchange are eligible for the offer, according to the CEO.
The project website stated, “Mt. Gox customers are early adopters; some of them were on BitcoinTalk when Satoshi Nakamoto was still posting.” “A new token or NFT airdrop is a terrific approach to engage people while also recouping some of the Mt. Gox losses.”
Users of Mt. Gox must prove they were customers of the exchange when they registered their accounts before February 25, 2014. The NFTs will be ERC-721 compliant, issued on the Polygon blockchain, and recognized by users’ Mt. Gox account numbers as well as their residual Bitcoin (BTC) and Japanese yen balances though the latter is optional.
“A hardcoded limit will prevent any NFT from being created outside the range of Mt. Gox accounts. This minting method will not have owner-only limitation, but instead will require an externally signed token to be issued to users who have completed verification.”
About Mt. Gox
Mt. Gox was previously one of the world’s largest exchanges, having been founded in 2010 by programmer Jed McCaleb and later owned by Karpelès.
Due to the exchange’s collapse, thousands of crypto holders were left out of pocket after a 2011 breach resulted in the loss of 850,000 BTC $460 million at the time and about $40 billion at the time of writing.
Mt. Gox’s trustee, Nobuaki Kobayashi, has been working for years to compensate the exchange’s creditors, declaring in November 2021 that a rehabilitation plan filed in Tokyo District Court has become “final and binding.”
The NFTs, on the other hand, are “completely independent” from the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case and “100% self-funded,” according to the celebratory NFT website. Despite the fact that the recently announced NFTs appear to be the only “official” ones to emerge from Mt. Gox collapse.
Some cryptocurrency users have been latching onto the controversies surrounding the exchange’s hack and insolvency since 2014. One of the cards in the blockchain-based trading card game Spells of Genesis parodies a photo of crypto trader Kolin Burges demonstrating outside the exchange’s Tokyo headquarters in 2014 with a sign demanding “Where is our money?” In 2015, the game released 700 “Gox, the Fallen Mountainlord” cards.
The whitepaper for the project also stated that after they were published, the NFTs might be updated to add art and hinted at other applications:
“Owning a Mt. Gox NFT proves you’re OG. You were there in the early days of Bitcoin, and now you can prove it on the blockchain […] it is possible to leverage this in the future in ways that aren’t known yet.”
