After Half a Decade, Mt. Gox Initiates $9.3B Bitcoin Transfer

Defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox transferred about 137,000 Bitcoin, valued at roughly $9.3b, in early Asian hours on Tuesday, according to data from Arkham Intelligence. These massive transfers were sent to a single anonymous wallet, ahead of Mt. Gox’s schedule to reimburse BTC holdings to creditors by October.

According to Arkham, the transactions occurred on May 28 between 1:41 AM and 4:46 AM UTC. Also, most of these were around 2,000 BTC each. Bitcoin’s price dropped slightly to $67,787 after reaching a high of $70,600 on Monday.

Mt. Gox, which once handled most Bitcoin transactions globally, started in 2010. However, in 2011, hackers stole a massive amount of Bitcoin from the exchange, leading to its bankruptcy in 2014. Millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin were lost, including customer funds and Mt. Gox’s own holdings.

Just In: Mt. Gox cold wallet transferred 12.24k BTC (about $840 million) to the unmarked address: 1JbezD…KLAPs6 today. The Mt. Gox address currently holds 137.892k BTC. Mt Gox will distribute its holdings of 142,000 BTC and 143,000 BCH to creditors before October 31, 2024.…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 28, 2024

Although some Bitcoin was recovered later, legal issues in Japan slowed down the process of returning funds to those who lost money in the hack. In the past year, US authorities charged two Russians with plotting to hack Mt. Gox’s servers.

Mt.Gox Prepares to Release Bitcoin to Creditors

Mt. Gox is nearing completion of its closure process and aims to distribute Bitcoin holdings to creditors in stages by October 31. This includes initial, mid-sized, and final lump-sum payments. A big concern is whether these creditors will immediately sell their Bitcoin, potentially causing a price drop.

Recently, analysts at K33 Research said Mt. Gox selling its Bitcoin could cause market jitters and potentially drive Bitcoin’s price down.

The recent activity in Mt. Gox wallets marks the first movement since May 2018, according to CryptoQuant.

Previously, the defunct platform held approximately 137,892 Bitcoin, along with Bitcoin Cash and fiat currency, as per previous records. Some of the fiat currency has already been reimbursed. Bitcoin Cash fell nearly 5% on Tuesday.