Arthur C. Clarke famously observed: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Our regulatory, legislative, and judicial systems illustrate this principle whenever new technology exceeds the limits of our existing legal framework and collective legal imagination. Cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin, has proven particularly “magical” in the existing framework of bankruptcy law, which has not yet determined quite what bitcoin is—a currency, an intangible asset, a commodity contract, or something else entirely.
Arthur C. Clarke famously observed: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Our regulatory, legislative, and judicial systems illustrate this principle whenever new technology exceeds the limits of our existing legal framework and collective legal imagination. Cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin, has proven particularly “magical” in the existing framework of bankruptcy law, which has not yet determined quite what bitcoin is—a currency, an intangible asset, a commodity contract, or something else entirely.
© 2011 Bloomberg Finance L.P. All rights reserved. Originally published by Bloomberg Finance L.P. in the Vol. 4, No. 6 edition of the Bloomberg Law Reports—Asia Pacific Law. Reprinted with permission. Bloomberg Law Reports® is a registered trademark and service mark of Bloomberg Finance L.P.
In its bankruptcy filing under Japan's Civil Rehabilitation Law, Mt. Gox claims 6.5 billion yen, or around $64 million, in liabilities and 3.84 billion yen, or around $38 million, in assets.
Introduction
In late February 2014, MtGox Co., Ltd (“MtGox”), once the largest bitcoin exchange in the world, suspended all trading on its exchange after internal investigations revealed a loss of approximately 750,000 of its customers’ bitcoins worth nearly $473 million. That loss caused MtGox to become insolvent.
On April 16, Mt. Gox’s civil rehabilitation proceeding in Tokyo (something similar to a U.S. Chapter 11) was dismissed and the initial stages of a bankruptcy liquidation under Japanese law began. An Interim Administrator (Nobuaki Kobaysahi) has been named until the Japanese court decides whether the liquidation will begin and whether a different Administrator replaces the Interim Administrator. How this situation came to be is an interesting tale.
The Bankruptcy Filing
Sale Hearing
On September 20, 2008, the Bankruptcy Court approved the sale of certain assets of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ("LBHI") and Lehman Brothers Inc. ("LBI"),1 including those related to its Canadian Capital Markets and Investment Banking businesses, to Barclays Capital, Inc. ("Barclays"). The sale was approved despite the filing of over 80 objections raising a number of procedural and substantive issues. The Purchase and Sale Agreement was subsequently amended, and a clarifying letter filed, to address a number of the questions and concerns raised.
Capital call subscription credit facilities (each, a “Facility”) continued their positive momentum in 2013 and had an excellent year as an asset class. As in the recent past, investor (“Investor”) funding performance remained as pristine as ever, and the only exclusion events we are aware of involved funding delinquencies by noninstitutional Investors (in many cases subsequently cured). Correspondingly, we were not consulted on a single Facility payment event of default in 2013.