NEW YORK Feb 17 Global bitcoin exchange Kraken said on Wednesday significant progress has been made in the investigation into claims of creditors of bankrupt exchange MtGox.In 2014, MtGox Co Ltd, a Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange, was forced to file for bankruptcy after hackers stole an estimated $650 million worth of customer bitcoins.Kraken was appointed in November of that year to assist Tokyo district court-appointed trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi in the bankruptcy investigation of missing bitcoins, receiving claims and distributing remaining assets to creditors of MtGox.Kraken said in a statement, citing the Tokyo-based trustee, that out of the 9,863 persons who filed bitcoin-only claims through the Japanese trustee or through Kraken's online service, 7,952 claimants have been approved.The approved creditor claims are equivalent to around 12.6 billion yen in bitcoins, with about 27.5 billion yen in bitcoins still on hold.According to the trustee's report shared by Kraken, a total of 24,733 people around the world have filed bankruptcy claims related to the MtGox exchange.

The total amount of bankruptcy claims filed in both bitcoin and fiat currencies are about 2.7 trillion yen.The trustee currently holds 202,163.41191816 bitcoin, worth more than $84 million."Althoughthe investigation into MtGox claims is still ongoing, we have made significant progress for creditors," said Kobayashi.One bitcoin is currently worth around $418.88 on the BitStamp platform.(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Bernard Orr) Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles Five London tower blocks evacuated over fire safety concerns LONDON Thousands of residents in a sprawling north London housing estate were forced to leave their apartments late on Friday after fire checks carried out in the wake of the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze found the buildings to be unsafe.China's party paper trumpets U.N.rights resolution as combating West's monopoly BEIJING The West's monopoly on rights has been dealt a blow by the United Nations' decision to adopt a China-led resolution saying development promotes human rights, an editorial in the official paper of China's ruling Communist Party said on Saturday.

Gox Bitcoin exchange creditors face renewed speculation over the payout they should receive in future from funds recovered from the hacked exchange.anx bitcoin credit cardIn a post on the creditors’ official Reddit community Saturday, former CEO Mark Karpeles personally addressed queries from a user demanding “clarity” about their entitlement.bitcoin laf gifGiven the recent price increases, pressure is on Karpeles to confirm whether victims will receive payouts in BTC or fiat.ethereum south africa"Creditors already know that given only 202,000 of the 850,000 BTC stolen was recovered, creditors stand to only receive 20 to 25 percent of their 2013 investments."ethereum volume by exchange

“Please say it now, if I can consider to hold the 20 to 25 percent of the MtGox BTC, or if I can only assume that I only hold the Fiat claim,” user u/noeeel wrote.bitcoin forum hrvatski“[...] Please just make this crystal clear what we can expect.bitcoin miner flagAnd please do it now, as the BTC price moves fast.” Karpeles responded that while there was “no clear answer,” decisions would be for creditors, not him or original Gox founder Jed McCaleb to decide.“In the end, I will have to contact all creditors to get approval for anything and the creditors will be the one to decide.There are various ways to make things as transparent as possible.” So it is not up to me as a shareholder, but up to creditors, mostly.If we can get a 95 percent plus positive response rate I'm somewhat confident things would go through, but until then, I have no idea.” In February, several hedge funds began offering to buy up creditors’ outstanding funds for cash but only at a fraction of the possible amount they could expect from waiting.

Username * First Name Last Name Email * Password * Repeat Password * You registration completed successfully.Confirmation email sent to email address provided.Email * Password *Mt.Gox CEO Mark Karpeles said in a statement that the bitcoins had been uncovered in an old-format wallet that was thought to be empty.Bitcoin wallets allow users to store the digital currency and execute transactions."On March 7, 2014, Mt.Gox Co., Ltd.confirmed that an old-format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC," the statement said.Karpeles said that the discovery was reported to lawyers on March 8.The bitcoins were later moved to "offline" wallets.Mt.Gox was one of the world's largest Bitcoin exchanges until last month, when it stopped investors from withdrawing money and blamed the disruption on technical issues and cyber attacks.The Japan-based company then filed for bankruptcy in Tokyo and the U.S., with debts totaling $64 million.

Related: How Mt.Gox went down At the time of its closure, Mt.Gox said that it was unable to locate 850,000 bitcoins, the vast majority of which belonged to customers.The discovery reduces the number of lost bitcoins to 650,000, but also raises questions about what really happened to the missing currency.While the search for the missing bitcoins will continue, many investors harbor little hope that all will be recovered.Japanese authorities had not regulated the exchange, and no deposit insurance was offered.Related: 'I lost money with Mt.Gox' Responding to the wave of doubt generated by the exchange's failure, several other exchanges and digital wallet providers have sought to reassure investors."This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt.Gox was the result of one company's abhorrent actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of Bitcoin and the digital currency industry," an industry group said in February.In related news, the team of volunteer computer developers who manage the Bitcoin software program has fixed some of the technical issues that Mt.Gox initially blamed for its troubles -- a quirk in the way Bitcoin works called transaction malleability.