Bitcoin
Below $57K as Mt Gox Begins Payments to Creditors By Investing.com
Investing.com– The price fell sharply to a four-month low on Friday, extending a recent price slide as now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt Gox began making payments to creditors.
Additionally, German police were seen transferring around $75 million worth of confiscated cryptocurrencies from a piracy website to exchanges, potentially heralding a mass sell-off event as seen earlier this year and adding to negative sentiment.
Bitcoin is down 2.9% in the past 24 hours to $56,539.7. The token has also fallen nearly 11% in the past seven days. Although it dipped below $55,000 earlier in the day, the leading cryptocurrency has recovered some ground following the latest US jobs data.
Mt Gox starts issuing refunds
The sharp drop in Bitcoin’s price comes as investors turn their attention to the nearly $9 billion payout to users of now-defunct bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.
Nobuaki Kobayashi, the trustee overseeing the Mt. Gox bankruptcy estate, announced that repayments in bitcoin and bitcoin cash have begun to some creditors through several designated cryptocurrency exchanges. However, he did not specify the exact amount of money transferred to these exchanges.
Kobayashi explained that the remaining funds will be distributed to creditors once certain conditions are met, including validation of registered accounts and completion of discussions between the trustee and designated cryptocurrency exchanges.
He stressed that efforts are underway to ensure repayments are made “safely” and urged “creditors eligible for rehabilitation to wait a little.”
The announcement follows the movement of a small amount of bitcoin from wallets linked to Mt. Gox, as reported by blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence. The largest movement recorded was a $24 transfer to Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank, which is among the platforms supporting refunds.
Fears of additional sales by German police also weighed.
Cryptocurrency Price Today: Political Uncertainty and Rate Jitters Affect Prices
Broader cryptocurrency prices followed Bitcoin’s sharp declines, with uncertainty over the US presidential election and interest rates also weighing on weak sentiment towards cryptocurrencies.
Speculation that President Joe Biden may drop out of the race as the Democratic nominee for the 2024 election has created some uncertainty in cryptocurrency markets, especially amid concerns that Biden will be replaced by an even more crypto-averse candidate.
Additionally, uncertainty ahead of a key US reading has also kept investors averse to cryptocurrencies, even as they dipped on rising expectations of an interest rate cut in September.
Cryptocurrency markets have lagged far behind the stock rally they usually follow.
The world’s No. 2 token fell 4.8% to $2,992.33, erasing all gains made in late May and hitting a nearly two-month low.
fell 4% while recovering its earlier losses and is now down 0.03%. fell 7.7, while among meme tokens, and lost about 4% each.
The losses were also driven in part by low trading volumes due to the July 4 holiday in the U.S. market. But they also reflected a steadily declining sentiment toward crypto as hype over the approval of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund dried up.
Overall, the cryptocurrency market has lost more than $170 billion in market capitalization over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko.
Cryptocurrency stocks follow Bitcoin’s decline
Aside from altcoins, cryptocurrency-related stocks also followed Bitcoin’s decline on Friday.
MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:), the largest publicly listed corporate holder of Bitcoin, saw its shares plunge more than 9%.
Similarly, bitcoin miners Riot Platforms (NASDAQ:) and Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:) fell 7% and 6.3%, respectively.
Additionally, CleanSpark Inc (NASDAQ:) shares fell over 4.6%, Cipher Mining Inc (NASDAQ:) dropped 8.6% and Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:) lost 6%.