Bitcoin
Bitcoin Price Virtually Unchanged as Mt. Gox Moves $2.8 Billion
Bitcoin briefly dipped on Tuesday morning when the administrator of Mt. Gox moved more than $2.8 billion worth of BTC to two different wallets, according to data collected by blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence. One of the wallets received 340 million dollars and the other $2.5 billion worth of Bitcoin during Asian trading hours.
“Mt. Gox moved a total of $2.85B worth of BTC to new wallets this morning to distribute 5110 BTC ($340.1M) BTC to 4 separate Bitstamp addresses,” Arkham wrote on twitter.
It was just a week ago that Kraken confirmed that it had received funds from the Mt. Gox trustee and would be distributing them to creditors. before the end of July. Bitstamp, another of the five exchanges tasked with transferring BTC and Bitcoin Cash to lenders, said it will begin its distributions “as soon as possible” and not taking the full 60 days was assigned.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price has climbed back above $67,000 — just 0.2% lower than yesterday — after briefly dipping to $66,267.87 around the same time as the Mt. Gox transfers. Overall, the world’s oldest and largest cryptocurrency has gained 7% in the past week and has seen over $38 billion in trading volume in the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko.
BTC transfers are taking place after the market endured three weeks of German government liquidating $2.8 billion in seized Bitcointhe US government moving millions value of BTC seized on Monday night, and a sudden shock in the US presidential election.
But Bitcoin traders appear undeterred. Analysts at cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex noticed yesterday that a decline in the Bitcoin Exchange Reserve metric, which tracks how much BTC is currently held in exchange wallets, has been slowing rapidly. This, they argued, suggests that large investors have been buying the dip and moving their funds into cold storage wallets.
But that doesn’t mean markets will be calm, they added.
“Furthermore, given the uncertainty brought by an unclear Democratic candidate, we can expect a news-heavy and volatile week, with elections, Ethereum ETF launch and Mt. Gox creditors receiving coins being some of the main talking points,” the analysts wrote.
The Rise and Fall of Mount Gox
Mt. Gox was once the largest Bitcoin exchange, handling around 70% of global Bitcoin transactions. Founded in 2010 — originally as a exchange for physical Magic: The Gathering cards—became a major player in the cryptocurrency world when it started accepting Bitcoin.
However, in 2014, Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy after revealing that it had lost approximately 850,000 Bitcoins, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, due to a security breach. The company’s downfall was attributed to mismanagement, inadequate security measures, and a lack of transparency.
Now, 10 years after Bitcoin disappeared, creditors will finally be paid.