New Zealand’s Cryptopia pays back $225m to account holders after liquidation

Bankrupt crypto exchange Cryptopia returns around $225 million worth in cryptocurrency to account holders via liquidators. This is the first phase of Cryptopia’s distribution plan since it went bankrupt in 2020.

According to the NZ Herald, the New Zealand-based crypto exchange’s liquidators declared that more than 10,000 account holders of Bitcoin (BTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE) received crypto funds worth more than NZ$400 million ($225 million) in the past 48 hours.

Grant Thornton, the public accountancy firm in charge of liquidating Cryptopia’s assets to customers, said that liquidators have been working towards identifying users to proceed with return payments since the launch of Cryptopia’s claim portal four years ago, following Justice David Gendall’s 2020 verdict.

The firm revealed that 10,000 accounts is just the tip of the iceberg, as the exchange has an estimated total of 960,000 users entitled to compensation after the crypto exchange’s untimely demise.

“This complex process also involved rebuilding the hacked cryptocurrency exchange and reconciling millions of transactions from nearly 960,000 users,” said Grant Thornton.

Moreover, the firm hinted at an additional top-up distribution plan for Cryptopia account holders which would let them receive up to 100% of funds from the “unclaimed holdings” owned by account holders who remain unregistered in the claims portal after the cut-off date has passed.

For now, Grant Thornton stated that it will continue to remind account holders to register on the portal and take the necessary steps to meet the requirements for future distributions.

“The liquidators will give account holders notice of the soft cut-off date in the coming days. Further distributions for newly verified users are planned for the new year,” the firm added.

Cryptopia went bankrupt in 2019, after the exchange suffered a hack that cost the exchange a loss of around $16 million in crypto assts. In May 2019, liquidators estimated that the exchange owed creditors an estimated total of $4.2 million.