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.”
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.
Related: Bitcoin bears trapped, but can BTC price surpass $70K by August?
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.
Investors often look for whale buying patterns to assess the health of the market and potential long-term investment opportunities.
Related: Bitcoin bottom signal? German gov’t runs out of BTC to sell
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.
Magazine: Could a financial crisis end crypto’s bull run?
Update (July 17 at 13:15 UTC): This article has been updated to correct the name of a quoted analyst to RunnerXBT.