Mt. Gox is preparing to return its BTC holdings to creditors before the October 31 repayment deadline.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has experienced a notable decline, falling 4% as Mt. Gox distributions start with big BTC moves.
Mt. Gox was once a leading crypto exchange based in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Launched in 2010, the platform handled over 70% of all bitcoin transactions globally. Mt. Gox was hacked in 2011, and in February 2014, it went bankrupt. In April 2014, the company initiated liquidation proceedings, although 200,000 bitcoins were subsequently found due to theft, fraud, and mismanagement.
In April 2015, new evidence presented by Tokyo security company WizSec led to the conclusion that “most or all of the missing bitcoins were gradually stolen directly from the Mt. Gox hot crypto wallet, starting in late 2011.”
Mt. Gox Starts Compensating Users
Mt. Gox became bankrupt following the catastrophic hack that resulted in the theft of 850,000 BTC, valued at $460 million at the time.
In February 2023, the largest creditors of the insolvent crypto exchange opted for a payment method enabling them to receive a chunk sum of their recovery payout in BTC instead of fiat currency.
According to Lookonchain, Mt. Gox still holds roughly 95,061 BTC, valued at approximately $6.53 billion.
Crypto Crib also posted an update on the X platform, stating that around $5 billion worth of BTC was on the moved. The Big Bitcoin move is perceived as Mt. Gox preparing to return its BTC holdings to creditors before the October 31 repayment deadline, over nine years after the exchange collapsed.
Experts had earlier cautioned against moving the Mt. Gox-era Bitcoin. It might unsettle the market and exert downward pressure on BTC prices. However, analyst James Check stated that the Mt. Gox event is going to be “a fantastic case study for why on-chain data works so well for Bitcoin.”
BTC Drops 4%
Bitcoin prices dropped by significantly from a high of $70,600, reaching a low of $67,555 about 12 hours later during the Tuesday morning Asian trading session.
At the time of writing, the price had slightly recovered to $68,334 and remained within its multi-month range-bound channel.
Popular trader Bleeding Crypto mentioned that he was monitoring technical support levels at $65,000 and $61,450.
