Mt. Gox, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, is set to pay 142,000 bitcoins to creditors before October this year. In a surprising move, Mt. Gox’s cold wallet address transferred all of its 140,000 bitcoins to an unknown address earlier today, indicating that the compensation process might be starting soon. At the same time, the price of bitcoin has experienced significant volatility.
(Previous Update:
Alarm Bells Ringing: Mt. Gox Prepares to Repay 140,000 BTC – Will Bitcoin Plummet?)
(Background Information:
Worst Exchange Ever: Mt. Gox Repaying $9.5 Billion in Bitcoin Could Cause BTC Dump)
Contents:
Mt. Gox Cold Wallet Transfers 140,000 Bitcoins
Bitcoin Drops Below $67,500
Potential Bitcoin Dump?)
Mt. Gox, the cryptocurrency exchange that went bankrupt in 2014 after losing 850,000 bitcoins in a hack, is now accelerating the compensation process after a decade. It is expected that by October this year, Mt. Gox will pay a total of 142,000 bitcoins, 143,000 BCH, and 69 billion Japanese yen to creditors.
Starting this month, Reddit users have been gradually revealing screenshots of Mt. Gox’s Kraken BTC and BCH payment API interfaces, which show “Payment in progress” with an update date of May 13. This indicates that Kraken is preparing for the payments, and creditors may soon receive their BTC and BCH repayments.
Furthermore, Arkham Intelligence, a monitoring firm, discovered that Mt. Gox’s cold wallet made multiple transactions from 9:41 to 14:07 today, transferring all 140,168 bitcoins to an unknown wallet address 1JbezDVd9VsK9o1Ga9UqLydeuEvhKLAPs6, worth approximately $9.61 billion.
Currently, there have been no further transfers from the bitcoins sent to the wallet address 1JbezDVd9VsK9o1Ga9UqLydeuEvhKLAPs6. Before receiving this substantial amount of bitcoins today, the wallet had received small amounts from two addresses on May 20 and 28. The funds from these two addresses came from a CoinJoin mixer.
Although there have been no further transfers from the 1Jbez… wallet, Bitcoin experienced a significant drop around the same time, reaching a low of $67,485 before the deadline, a decrease of over 4% within 12 hours.
Over the past decade, the price of Bitcoin has increased by over 10 times. Market concerns arise as the total of over 140,000 bitcoins might cause short-term dumping in the market, leading to volatility in Bitcoin.
K33 Research, a cryptocurrency company, previously stated in a report that the repayment of 142,000 bitcoins and 143,000 BCH by Mt. Gox could “become a significant factor affecting price drops in the coming weeks.”
K33 Research pointed out that while creditors are unlikely to collectively sell their received payments, this expectation might encourage market participants to remain cautious and avoid taking risks before the event occurs.
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