Bitcoin
Bitcoin (BTC) Prices Drop Near $62,000 as Mt. Gox Prepares to Start BTC and Bitcoin Cash Payments
Defunct bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox said Monday it will begin distributing assets stolen from customers in a 2014 hack in the first week of July, years after continually shifting deadlines.
“The rehabilitation administrator is preparing to make payments in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in accordance with the Rehabilitation Plan,” administrator Nobuaki Kobayashi said in a statement on Monday. posted on the Monte website. Gox.
“Refunds will be made from the beginning of July 2024,” Kobayashi said, adding that due diligence and certain security measures will be required before payments are made.
Refunds are widely seen as adding selling pressure to bitcoin (BTC) markets, as early investors will receive assets at a much higher value than their pre-2013 inflows, making them inclined to sell at least a portion of their holding, traders said.
Gox was once the world’s leading crypto exchange, handling more than 70% of all bitcoin transactions in its early years. In early 2014, hackers attacked the exchange, resulting in the loss of around 740,000 bitcoins ($15 billion at current prices). The hack was the largest of many attacks on the exchange in the years 2010-13.
In May, the exchange first moved more than 140,000 BTC, worth around $9 billion, from cold wallets to an unknown address in 13 transactions, marking the first wallet movements on the network. for the first time in five years.
Bitcoin prices fell from more than $62,300 in the early hours in Asia to less than $62,100 in the minutes following the release of Mt. Gox’s statement, CoinGecko data shows.