The impact of Mt. Gox’s repayments on Bitcoin is still being overestimated and will likely be utilized by whales to pick up more BTC at a discount, says CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju.
In a July 16 post to X, Ju said that the impact of Mt. Gox sales — anywhere between $3 billion and $9 billion in BTC — is negligible compared to the total increase in the market capitalization of Bitcoin (BTC) over the last 18 months.
“Even if Mt. Gox’s $3B is sold on Kraken, it’s just 1% of the realized cap increase in this bull cycle — manageable liquidity,” wrote Ju.
Additionally, Ju noted that the price of Bitcoin was most vulnerable to speculative “FUD” — fear, uncertainty, and doubt — around perceived negative events and less so to the fundamental selling activity behind it.
Ju said that while many investors were “panic selling”, the “smart money” is continually buying more Bitcoin.
Ju pointed to a July 10 post that cited data showing that “permanent holders” — large individual custodial wallets with no outflows — accumulated 85,000 BTC in the prior 30-day period.
Over the last several weeks, the Mt. Gox trustee has shifted funds from cold wallets to hot wallets on several occasions.
Mt. Gox currently holds 138,985 BTC valued at roughly $8.93 billion, according to data from Arkham Intelligence,
On July 5, the collapsed Japanese crypto exchange Mt. Gox informed creditors it had begun returning approximately 140,000 recovered Bitcoin to its users, who lost their funds back in 2014 during a major hack.
Related: Bitcoin back above $65K as traders shake off Mt. Gox BTC transfers
However, Galaxy Digital’s head of research, Alex Thorn, estimated that only 65,000 of the 141,000 total Bitcoin could hit the market, significantly reducing the expected downside.
Similarly, analysts told Cointelegraph they believed much of the potential sell pressure concerning Mt. Gox sales was already “priced in” and that the worst of BTC’s price action was likely over.
The price of Bitcoin has gained 12% over the last seven days, bouncing off two-month lows of $53,500 on July 4, and is currently changing hands for $65,154, per TradingView data.
Magazine: Crypto exposes sudden rift among Democrats months ahead of election