Tokyo | Japanese bankruptcy lawyers began repaying thousands of creditors of collapsed crypto exchange Mt Gox over the weekend, prompting a wave of selling that led to the price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency falling below $US55,000 ($81,445) for the first time since February.

It has been 10 years since frustrated bitcoin investors picketed outside the Mt Gox exchange offices in downtown Tokyo, after discovering hundreds of thousands of bitcoin had gone missing when one of the world’s first exchanges was hacked in 2014.