Author: Mary Liu, BitpushNews
Crypto markets faced heavy selling pressure after the trustee of the Mt. Gox bankruptcy estate announced that it would begin returning Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) to creditors in July.
More than 140,000 BTC and BCH will be distributed to creditors. Affected by this news, Bitcoin once fell below $59,000 during the session. As of press time, the trading price rebounded to $59,962, a 24-hour drop of nearly 6%.
Altcoin followed Bitcoin's decline, with the top 200 tokens by market cap falling more than rising.
Among the rising coins, Mog Coin (MOG) led the gains, up 16.4%, followed by Lido DAO (LIDO) up 8.2%, and UNUS SED LEO (LEO) up 6.4%. ORDI (ORDI) led the decline, down 14%, Echelon Prime (PRIME) down 11.8%, and Uniswap down 11.7%.
The current overall market value of cryptocurrencies is $2.21 trillion, with Bitcoin accounting for 53.2% of the market share.
Mt.Gox sell-off may be smaller than expected
The decade-long Mt. Gox repayment incident is a major event in the cryptocurrency space. Mt. Gox was hacked in 2014, with more than 940,000 bitcoins stolen from more than 127,000 accounts. The exchange subsequently filed for bankruptcy, and creditors were unable to recover their funds in full until the bankruptcy case entered legal proceedings.
In May this year, the exchange transferred 141,686 bitcoins (worth $9.62 billion) to a new wallet "1Jbez", causing a stir and brief panic in the market. Some industry insiders warned that a large-scale market sell-off was imminent because it was the first time that funds from Mt. Gox-related cold wallets had been transferred on-chain in more than five years.
In its latest statement, repayment trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi noted that Mt. Gox has invested extra time and due diligence "to ensure safe and secure repayment to creditors, including technical remedies for safe repayment, compliance with financial regulations in various countries, and discussions with cryptocurrency exchanges on repayment arrangements."
The statement called on creditors to remain patient and said the speed of repayment would depend on the repayment method chosen, which would include coordination with other cryptocurrency exchanges.
Some experts note that the selling pressure from Mt. Gox may be less than expected.
Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Research, said the expected volume of sales from the Mt. Gox bitcoins entering the market will be lower than suggested by headline reports, with his analysis suggesting only 65,000 bitcoins will be distributed to individual investors.
Alex Thorn said on the X platform: "In order to get immediate compensation (so-called early compensation), creditors accepted a reduction of about 10% (10% is not needed). We believe that about 75% of BTC was used for this option, leaving about 95,000 tokens for early compensation, of which about 20,000 tokens belong to the claims fund and about 10,000 tokens belong to Bitcoinica BK, leaving about 65,000 tokens for individual creditors. 65,000 BTC/BCH is far less than the 141,868 claimed by the media."
As for the claims funds, Thorn said the vast majority of partners in these funds are high-net-worth Bitcoin holders, not arbitrageurs looking for a quick profit.
He concluded: “So I think the number of tokens distributed is lower than the market expects, and I think once these tokens are distributed, BCH will perform worse than BTC, with a large portion being sold by creditors into less liquid markets.”
Some analysts and early crypto investors who have been involved in Mt. Gox since its inception also said that despite the announcement by the Mt. Gox trustee, repayments could face further delays, as the exchange was scheduled to begin repaying in October 2023 but announced in September 2023 that it would postpone its repayment plan.
Crypto trader Pat believes that the FUD and pullbacks related to Mt. Gox are nothing new to the crypto market, as similar pullbacks occurred three times in the past when the incident made headlines, but Bitcoin eventually moved higher.
Latest bout of weakness may ‘solve itself’
Bitfinex analysts said the cryptocurrency market is currently “in a state of uncertainty as higher timeframe lows are approaching on the daily, weekly, and monthly charts, while there is also a downtrend on the lower timeframes (one-minute to 15-minute charts).”
They also noted that outflows from U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs “exacerbated negative sentiment, with outflows totaling $544.1 million last week, though this was related to basis/profit-carry unwinding and not necessarily true sentiment around BTC.”
Bitfinex analysts said: "As mentioned earlier, large-scale ETF sell-offs are usually associated with local bottoms in BTC prices. As a result, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization declines. Historically, fluctuations of this magnitude usually indicate at least a local low, as was the case on June 11, when a similar intra-week decline led to the formation of a new local price bottom. Therefore, there are potential buying opportunities, and these large declines are worth traders' close attention."
“However, we believe the market is in wait-and-see mode, with the short term seeing either continued pressure from excess BTC selling and a lack of any catalysts to drive prices higher, or an ETH ETF getting approved and sparking renewed positive sentiment, especially in Altcoin,” Bitfinex concluded.
Brian Dixon, CEO of Off the Chain Capital, said what cryptocurrency investors really need is patience and waiting for the latest round of weakness to "work itself out."
Dixon said in a report: "Historically, even in bull markets, Bitcoin has fallen 4-5 times per year by 20-30%, so in my opinion, this correction is nothing to worry about. In the 2017 bull market, Bitcoin fell 20-30% as many as 10 times, but still set new all-time highs. In the 2020-2021 bull market, Bitcoin fell 20-30% 4 times, but still set new all-time highs."
