Over 107,000 BTC, worth around $7 billion, were transferred from Mt. Gox wallets to an unknown address in thirteen transactions, possibly as part of a plan to repay creditors by October 31, 2024.
The market reacted bearishly to these movements, with Bitcoin dropping by 1.4% to as low as $67,680 after reaching a high of over $70,000 on Monday.
Wallets belonging to the defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox transferred over 107,000 bitcoin (BTC), valued at around $7 billion, to an unknown address starting early Asian morning hours on Tuesday.
Mt. Gox, once the largest bitcoin exchange in the world, closed in 2014 after it was revealed that it had lost hundreds of thousands of bitcoin in a hack. Creditors have since awaited the repayment of their holdings - one that is largely considered to add selling pressure to BTC markets.
Wallet activity shows the movements were done over thirteen transactions. A likely test transaction worth $3 was made on May 20, and another smaller transaction of $160 was done early Tuesday. The remaining transactions ranged from $1.2 million to $2.2 billion worth of bitcoin.
This is the first movement of assets from Mt. Gox's cold wallets in over five years and is likely a part of a plan to distribute the assets back to creditors before October 31, 2024.
All coins have been transferred to a new address “1JbezDVd9VsK9o1Ga9UqLydeuEvhKLAPs6,” CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno said in an X post.
Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy, said in an X post that he expected most of the transferred bitcoin to be held by creditors, instead of being sold on the open market.
Outflows from Mt. Gox addresses continue: Now a total of 42,829 Bitcoin have moved out from Mt. Gox addresses in the last few hours.All coins have been transferred to a new address: 1JbezDVd9VsK9o1Ga9UqLydeuEvhKLAPs6 pic.twitter.com/s19TtkMP3i
— Julio Moreno (@jjcmoreno) May 28, 2024
Still, market participants appeared to turn bearish on the movements with bitcoin shedding 1.4% since the start of Asian trading hours. It dropped to as low as $67,680 after a Monday high of over $70,000.
