Cryptopia’s assigned liquidator Grant Thornton New Zealand today released its first report on the state of affairs of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange.
Earlier this week, Grant Thornton filed a petition in the Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York to preserve the exchange’s information stored on servers in the United States. The court issued an order to Cryptopia granting its emergency motion for provisional relief until June 7.
In a press release accompanying the report, Liquidators David Ruscoe and Russell Moore said that they are continuing the process of recovering crypto-assets that were compromised from the hack of Cryptopia’s exchange.
“As liquidators we have a responsibility to protect and preserve crypto-asset holdings for the benefit of those entitled to them,” Moore s said.
“We are aware of and understand the frustration of Cryptopia’s customers. As there is no legal precedent on crypto assets in New Zealand and worldwide, the distribution of those assets and the overall conduct of the liquidation will require significant direction from the New Zealand Courts.”
While the audit is currently ongoing, the report dated May 31 shows that a total of NZ$4.22 million (approximately US$2.74 million) is owed to creditors. It estimates employee preferential entitlements at the date of liquidation around NZ$0.32 million. Dell and Coca-Cola have been named as secured creditors and are owed over NZ$1.4 million.
Furthermore, there are 69 unsecured creditor claims totaling NZ$2.439 million, per the report. The liquidators said that they expect to receive claims in excess of this amount.
The liquidators said that they cannot currently estimate a date for when the liquidation will be completed.
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