Markets
Cryptocurrency Market Bloodbath as Mt. Gox Bitcoin (BTC) Payout Looms
Rival token ether fell about 10% to $2,869.36.
In total, the entire cryptocurrency market has lost more than $170 billion in combined market capitalization over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko.
On Friday, Mt. Gox bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi said in a declaration which had begun making payments in bitcoin and bitcoin cash to some of the creditors through a number of designated cryptocurrency exchanges.
The Mt. Gox administrator did not specify how much money was transferred to these exchanges.
He noted that the remaining funds would be returned to creditors once a number of conditions were met, including confirmation of the validity of registered accounts and completion of discussions between the trustee and designated cryptocurrency exchanges.
The trustee is still working to ensure that repayments “can be made safely,” Kobayashi wrote, asking that “creditors eligible for rehabilitation please wait a little while.”
This comes after a small amount of bitcoin was moved out of wallets associated with Mt. Gox, according to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, with the largest movement being a $24 transfer to Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank. Bitbank is among the recipients listed to support refunds.
Recently, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has been pressured by news of the collapse of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, setting up the distribution of approximately US$9 billion of coins to users. This dumping of coins into the market is expected to lead to some significant selling action.
Also putting pressure on cryptocurrency markets, the German government on Thursday sold about 3,000 bitcoins — worth approximately $175 million at today’s prices — from a pile of 50,000 bitcoins seized in connection with the movie piracy operation Movie2k, according to Arkham Intelligence.
Arkham, which is monitoring Germany’s bitcoin wallet, noted that the government still holds more than 40,000 bitcoins, valued at more than $2 billion.