Sorry, I am not sure I understand what you mean.

The 600'000+ bitcoins that were stolen/embezzled should be considered lost, unless by some miracle the thief is identified, caught by the police, prosecuted, and persuaded to return the coins.  Kobayashi may ask the police to investigate the theft, if he has not done so; but that is not his job, and the bankruptcy proceedings will be closed well before the police investigation is complete.  If said miracle occurs and those coins are recovered, the proceedings may perhaps be reopened to distribute them; but it is no use to discuss that possibility now.

So, the best you will get back, in the foreseeable future, is 1/4 of what you have lost.

Kobayashi was appointed by the court to figure out what is left of MtGOX's assets, collect the claims by the clients, validate those claims, and distribute among them those remaining assets -- mainly 200'000+ bitcoins and a couple million dollars, that were still in possession of MtGOX and that he has now legally taken custody of.  He will obviously charge his fees for doing that non-trivial task (and for the consultants that he needs to hire), but plenty will be left over.

No one can get any of those coins without his agreement and the approval by the japanese court.   Attempts to do so would be theft and worse, so don't even think about it.

IMHO, the first thing you all should do is to find out how the claims are going to be computed; if that is not decided yet, how much freedom the Japanese law allows.  (There are principles of openness and fairness to all claimants, whether bitcoins and money can be accounted separately, etc. which may constrain the method even if the law does not determine it.)  Note, again, that your preferences are not relevant, unless Kobayashi and the court choose to consider them.  Note also that, depending on the accounting method chosen, the amount you may claim may be a million dollars, or may be zero.

If you are reasonably certain that you are entitled to a large sum, I belive that it pays to hire a Japanese lawyer, at least for basic advice.  If your expected refund is not that large, maybe you should join a group and hire a lawyer as a group.  Do not try to understand the laws without a lawyer.   Heed the old saying, "he who chooses to be his own lawyer has a fool for client and an idiot for lawyer."  Think of them as medical doctors: they may be greedy bastards, but if you need them, you have to use them.

Finally, some "legal" advice: when dealing with the law or lawyers, it helps a lot to wear a decent business suit and tie.  Not a social jacket & pants, not party-animal uniform, not a young-silicon-valley-genius t-shirt, not a I'm-camping-in-the-public-park stye outdoor clothing.  It sounds stupid, I know, but the universe is an incredibly stupid place.

I understood, and your point is quite valid. However, there is no justification for using Method X should 100% of the coins still be there, never were really gone, and the 850,000 BTC number was a complete hoax. When all the coins are accounted for, it means all of the trades of both Joe and Bill were perfectly "real", and so there is no reason at all to use the Method X for computing each depositor's share.

Madoff's case was quite different, because he was running a Ponzi. On the other hand, if you genuinely believe Mt. Gox was a Ponzi, then perhaps after all the court should favour Method X for division. How can you be sure though without some proof of how many coins Mt. Gox originally held at the time of its bankruptcy? After the known lie about the "bitcoin bug" in the bk filing, why do you accept the rest of it as being true?

The "leaked" database could have been doctored, while the original is still quite intact and unchanged. Perhaps a phony db was leaked out as part of the instigator's plan for covering up tracks. The takedown of Mt. Gox appears to have been well thought-out including a coordinated public relations campaign to convince the public that management had been incompetent and there is a "need" to regulate bitcoin.

Perhaps most people "agree" on the amount of 800K bitcoins, because its what they've been told to believe. The only real sources for this information are a leaked database and the bankruptcy filing which blames the problem on a "bug in the bitcoin system." This latter claim has more or less been proven false.

It's far easier for me to believe the smaller amount of bitcoins. 200K BTC are still worth in the neighborhood of $100 million. Any much larger sum of coins would seem ridiculous for a three year old company such as Mt. Gox.

Of course I am merely speculating, which is exactly my point, even the amount of bitcoins Mt. Gox held is still very much in doubt. There needs to be full disclosure of this kind of information before talking about dividing up "the spoils".

A good balance of the situation.  I am not a lawyer and not even a client, but anyway here are my guesses as to what will Mr. Kobayashi do:

I would almost bet on these.  Paying in bitcoin could lead to squabbles later, due to variable value of bitcon etc.  Paying in yen will simplify his accounting, and he has plenty of legal and practical excuses for going that way.  The trade history is irrelevant if he chooses "method X", and could be obtained from the MtGOX databases if he chooses "method Y".

Even if there are a few thousand claims, the "army" of validators would not have to be that big.  The main difficulty, I suppose, will be to verify the BTC deposits and withdrawals (if by "method X") or whether the MtGOX accounting of trades and balances have not been doctored (if by "method Y").  Apparently he has already hired bitcoin-savy computer experts to help him with the technical details.

Almost certain, too, unless (perhaps) if the buyer has strong proof of the transaction (like, a notarized contract).   Even then, selling one's account may be seen as an attempt to evade the banks' KYC/AML measures, and so it may bring trouble for buyer and seller.

To be safe, the original owner who registered at MtGOX and provided his ID would have to file the claim, and then turn over the spoils to the buyer.

If the payout is to be in yen, he will have to auction the coins anyway, and then the proceeds of the auction (minus the auctioner's  fees) will be added to the money to be distributed.

This rule is implicit in "method X" above.  Those lucky bastards will walk away with a profit, at the expense of those who failed to withdraw in time.  But such "injustice" is inevitable; their situation would be like that of the Madoff clients who withdrew before the collapse, or WorldCom shareholders who sold all their shares in 2000.

IIRC, analysis of the database yielded only 70'000 accounts that had some nontrivial balance (I don't recall the threshold, but it was 1 BTC at most). 

I would think that a client with less than 500 USD balance (1 BTC) would be very unlikely to  file, since his return would be at most 1/5 of that, or 100 USD.  Many of those above that threshold will not file because they have dirty hands.  So the claims should be less than 50'000 probably much less.

More victims may give up if Kobayashi goes by "method X" and require claimants to provide the full history of their deposits and withdrawals.

The CCI web site has been up there for months, and is fairly regularly updated. I will of course let them defend themselves, yet have never really heard any complaints about data theft. A quick google search turned up absolutely nothing. I'd be curious if anyone else has had a negative experience with this company. It never hurts to be a little cautious.

I found their "update" page to be quite enlightening:
http://www.mtgoxinvestigation.com/updates.html

They may be legit, of course.  Or they may be legit but not as competent and effective as they say they are.

That list of "updates" is mostly pointers to articles and news published by other people.  I don't see them doing much on their own...

 

Lets just hope there was a LOT of criminal money there, which is not being claimed.

Good luck getting enough people to support the blacklist for it to have the desired effect. There have been countless topics about blacklisting, generally (from my observation) the majority supports fungibility instead.

Fixed that for you.