BitMart asks 12 million frozen users to take a payout now or hold tokens tied to its 2021 hack

Those four line items add up to exactly $319.5 million ^[1], so the plan's figure is BitMart's own tally from December 2021. It is about 2.1 times what the exchange said publicly at the time ^[2] and $119.5 million above PeckShield's estimate ^[3]. BitMart had two numbers for one theft in 2021, and the repayment plan uses the larger one to explain why customers are short ^[2].

Spread across more than 12 million frozen accounts ^[1], that hole comes to at most about $26.60 an account ^[4]. The $10 million BitMart turned down would have filled about 3.1% of it ^[5], at most 83 cents an account ^[6], so the dismissal holds up on size. Or rather, it holds if the offer was only a cheque. Echo Base, which the offer reportedly came from, says it proposed to fund a bankruptcy plan agreed with creditors in advance. It says BitMart never replied to that August 6 proposal ^[17]. BitMart kept the process with its own advisers, Alvarez & Marsal and White & Case ^[11]. Echo Base has since formed a creditors' committee and hired Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor and Ashbury Legal ^[18].

Because each claim is fixed in dollars on an average price before anything is paid ^[7], the upfront option still carries market risk. It is a proportional share of a pool holding Bitcoin, Ether and Solana alongside cash and the USDC, PYUSD and USDT stablecoins ^[3]. A user who takes it stays exposed to crypto prices until the pool is handed out. The reporting does not give the size of that pool or the total of the dollarised balances, and without both nobody outside BitMart can compute a recovery rate.

The Continuum Token draws on investments, private equity stakes, altcoins and a share of profits if BitMart raises enough to reopen ^[6]. In a first-half update, Global CEO Nenter (Nathan) Chow said the eight-year-old exchange intended to last another eight years ^[14]. Chow later said he was told on July 24 that his employment was ending and was never consulted on the wind-down. The BMX token fell almost 60% in a day ^[15].

Suppose the forensic work turns up large, reachable "certain pockets of value" on the unnamed centralized exchanges ^[5]. Then Restitution Token holders ^[4] get paid for waiting. A liquid pool big enough to cover most verified balances would mean the token options matter mainly to the largest accounts. The November revision ^[13] could also rewrite the menu once the 50 largest holders have been heard ^[12]. In my view the upfront payout is the only option a user can value against assets that exist today. The Restitution Token is a claim on value held at exchanges BitMart has not identified. The Continuum Token depends on reopening an exchange whose own chief executive says it shut without consulting him ^[15]. The counter-case is that BitMart knows where the stolen value sits and needs only a court process to reach it. I would be wrong if BitMart names those exchanges and the assets are frozen before the tokens are issued.