Over one-third of the Bitcoin owed to defunct creditors of the Mt. Gox exchange has already been distributed, but large Bitcoin holders continue their buying spree unfazed.
Over 36% of the Bitcoin (BTC) owed to the creditors of Mt. Gox has already been distributed, according to a July 17 X post by CryptoQuant. The analytics firm wrote:
“The trustee holds 141,686 BTC, which will be distributed over time. With yesterday’s transaction, 36% of the Bitcoin has been moved to their former users.”
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Crypto investors have been concerned about the potential sell pressure that could be introduced with the Mt. Gox repayments and their potential downward pressure on Bitcoin price.
More than $9.4 billion worth of Bitcoin is owed to approximately 127,000 Mt. Gox creditors who have been waiting for over 10 years to recover their funds.
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Bitcoin whales continue accumulating
Despite the potential sell pressure from Mt. Gox creditors, large Bitcoin holders, also known as whales, continue accumulating.
A savvy whale bought 245 BTC, worth nearly $16 million, on July 17. The address has only traded Bitcoin twice this past year, making over $30 million worth of profit from the trades, according to a July 17 X post by Lookonchain:
“From Aug 9 to Dec 18, 2023, he bought 718 $BTC at $29,385 and sold at $41,953, making $9M. From Feb 7 to Jun 20, 2024, he bought 1,181 $BTC at $48,822 and sold at $66,792, making $21.2M.
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Investors often look for whale buying patterns to assess the health of the market and potential long-term investment opportunities.
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Will 99% of Mt. Gox creditors sell their Bitcoin, or only the “paper hands”?
Up to 99% of the creditors could be looking to sell their BTC from the defunct exchange, according to finance analyst Jacob King.
This is partly because Bitcoin’s value has increased by over 8,500% in the 10 years since Mt. Gox’s collapse.
However, only the weakest Bitcoin holders will be looking to sell their tokens, which will only cause short-term Bitcoin selling pressure, according to popular on-chain analyst RunnerXBT.
The analyst wrote in a July 16 X post:
“I expect CT [Crypto Twitter] (read as the softest of the men, soyest of soy) to react to the first few 5k BTC+ transfers to CEX. Transfers on-chain (shuffle of coins within wallets) do fuck all.”
Large amounts of sell pressure flooding the market can have a significant impact on Bitcoin’s price, which has recently recovered from an over-one-month downtrend.
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Update (July 17 at 13:15 UTC): This article has been updated to correct the name of a quoted analyst to RunnerXBT.