In a new chapter in the saga of Mt. Gox, the once-mighty cryptocurrency exchange has been found to have transferred a considerable sum of bitcoin (BTC) to an unknown address.
Mt. Gox has moved around 12,000 BTC, valued at $784 million, to a hardware wallet under its control today, August 21, according to data from Arkham Intelligence, as can be seen in the following image.
Transferring BTC to a hardware wallet. Source: Arkham Intelligence.
In addition, Mtt. Gox has also made two transfers of 1,265 BTC each, to it's own hardware wallet and to another belonging to the Bitstamp exchange. This happens in the middle of the process of reimbursing creditors, who suffered the consequences of the historic hack suffered by Mt. Gox in 2014.
Last week, a BitGo exchange wallet received roughly $2 billion worth of bitcoin from Mt. Gox, which was then moved to a separate wallet, Arkham Intelligence reported.
Kraken, another exchange involved in returning funds to Mt. Gox creditors, performed similar operations before handing over the funds to the bankrupt exchange's users.
These bitcoin transfers occur in the midst of the process of repaying creditors, who were severely affected by the exchange a decade ago. Since then, Mt. Gox has retained 140,000 BTC and much of these funds are what it has sent to its former users this year.
A complex refund plan
The Mt. Gox hack in 2014 resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of bitcoin, both from users and the exchange's reserves.
Since then, the company has been working on a rehabilitation plan to return funds to its creditors. The latter have been given the option to choose between a cash refund or receiving their funds in bitcoin or cryptocurrencies.
It is important to explain that those who had BTC imprisoned in Mt. Gox also received the equivalent in bitcoin cash (BCH), after the cryptocurrency fork in 2017. That is, if a user had 20 BTC, they also received 20 BCH.
Those who opted for digital assets have started receiving their bitcoins since last July, and the process is expected to continue until the end of October.
The impact of bitcoins held by Mt. Gox on the market
Although only 34,000 BTC remain to be returned, the recent multi-million dollar transfers made by the exchange have generated concern in the market, as there is fear that these funds will be sold en masse, which could trigger a drop in the price of bitcoin .
If a large amount of these assets were to be sold suddenly, it could put downward pressure on the price of BTC. However, if most creditors decide to hold their bitcoin for the long term, the impact on the price could be less significant.
