The more I consider this story, the more I believe the Mt Gox’ Trustees’ unfathomably reckless, borderline unethical Bitcoin sales were perpetrated with nefarious motives - far removed from the stated task of generating funds to pay creditors.
NEVER in history has a major block of Bitcoin been dumped on the market - as opposed to the auction process, which anyone with half a brain; let alone, a fiduciary duty; would utilize. I mean, this is the biggest Bitcoin block ever sold for non-fundamental reasons…which the Trustee had to have known would crash the market.
Frankly, it’s unfathomable he was even allowed to do so – particularly in the later stages, when massive amounts were sold at the bottom. Throw in the “convenient” fact that as this story was made public yesterday, the Japanese government simultaneously revealed plans to crack down on cryptocurrency exchange regulations…which just happens to have occurred simultaneously with the SEC’s own crackdown press release.
Lastly, there’s the incredibly fishy price crash Monday night – when “out of the blue,” the price plunged from $11,600 to $11,000 on heavy volume; followed by relentless selling Tuesday, and “coincident” sell-offs at 11:00 AM EST Wednesday (as the SEC press release was published), Thursday, and Friday.
This stuff simply does not happen in freely-traded markets – and given what we now know about the Mt Gox Trustee story, there is not a question in my mind that his sale was part of a bigger, more nefarious operation. Even more incredible, is the brazenness of carrying it out – knowing full well it will likely yield a new round of Mt Gox lawsuits, for gross negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.
That said, the key takeaway is that the Bitcoin price has been artificially suppressed - and it won’t be long before the entire global investment community is onto it. Thus, while some believe prices will remain depressed by the fear of further “Bear Whale” sales, I would say that knowing prices are below their equilibrium level due to a non-fundamental factor, will only embolden “bull whales” to take larger, less price-sensitive positions.