- Fortress Investment is buying Mt. Gox BTC claims for $900 saying it’s “fair”
- Twitter community is offering more calling this a “scam”
Few days ago, Softbank Group-owned private equity firm Fortress Investment Group announced they were buying Bitcoin claims from the creditors of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt Gox.
Michael Hourigan, a managing director at Fortress Investment Group, seems to have no problem with the price because he finds it “pretty fair”. On the first look, maybe it is. When Mt. Gox happened, the price of BTC was $451, and now, some nice company offers to save all the poor investors by doubling a price.
Twitter Community In Rage
But let’s just ask ourselves one question – why would someone do that? What kind of benefits someone has. Rescuing people? Solving them from their sins (debts)? Is it possible that Fortress is actually a new Messiah?
Well, we don’t think so. First of all, a lot of people, being just ordinary investors, would today offer to buy your claims for so much more. Bare in mind, Bitcoin is again over $13K and the rally doesn’t have an intention to stop. Twitter community is pretty much assured that this is a pure scam and, we couldn’t more but agree.
Just look at the answer under the recent tweet from investor and Bitcoin proponent Anthony Pompliano:
Are you a former Mt Gox customer who was affected by the hack?
You can now sell your Bitcoin claims to Fortress Investment Group for $900 per Bitcoin. https://t.co/r39CsLisLk
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) July 10, 2019
People have been buying Mt. Gox claims for years now, knowing that this is a gamble – and all in the faith that, eventually, the matter will be resolved and the claims will be settled, in part or whole via Bitcoin.
In April this year, the Mt. Gox trustee, who is in charge of distributing what remains of Mt. Gox’s assets to creditors, put in for an extension on the filing deadline, which would have been today. The deadline has been extended about six months, to October 28th.
Fortress As Just Another Debt Collector
However, we are still pretty much not sure what will happen, but we are sure in one thing – this is a scam for naive investors who, maybe, need money very quick. If you’ve ever had a debt in some of the banks in some countries, and you couldn’t pay it off, the bank would sell your debt to a debt collectors. Debt collectors are never fully legal firms.
They are in so-called “grey zones” of the law. They are not regulated but also not forbidden. And usually, you’ll have to pay them a lot more then you have previously owned.
Now, let’s take Fortress as a debt collector and Mt. Gox as debtors. Do you think they’ll pay their debt by $900 per BTC or by 13K, 25K or even 100K when the time comes? Of course not. But for amateur investors that went into Bitcoin before knowing what it is – that might seem like a great option.
Our advise is – HODL. Do not sell. If you’re really eager for this money, there are plenty of individuals who will buy it from you for more than $3800 where BTC was at its lowest. Or you could wait for October. There is a big probability you won’t get the exact market price but it sure will be more than $900.
