The Mt. Gox bitcoin hack is probably the most vivid example of how fragile the cryptocurrency world has been in the near past. Mt. Gox was a bitcoin exchange based in Japan that handled over 70% of all bitcoin transactions around the world, and was the leading crypto exchange during 2010 – 2014. However, Mt. Gox was also the “place” where the largest bitcoin hack has ever occurred – 850,000 BTC were lost, of which only around 200,000 were ever found.
Now, a Russian law firm states that it can recover around $2 billion worth of the stolen BTC in exchange for a 75% fee claims. The firm in question is Zheleznikov and Partners. As quoted from Bitcoin Exchange Guide, the company believes it recover approximately 170,000 to 200,000 Bitcoins from the Russian “stakeholders” who participated in the hack and received the stolen coins. The current value of these coins, if recovered, will be close to $2 billion.
How the firm aims to accomplish this is through a complicated scheme. First, the lawyers will have to start a criminal case in Russia relating to the attack. In order to do that, Zheleznikov and Partners have to present the victims of the hack to the police. However, most of the complications in this process will come from the new law amendment that will be enforced in October 2019 that will help the cryptocurrency classification as “assets”.
According to press, Zheleznikov and Partners will be demanding quite a big claims fee from the Mt. Gox creditors – the range will be between 50% and 75% from the potentially recovered funds. This will happen only if the law firm is successful in recovering the lost amounts.