Defunct Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox moved 16000 Bitcoins causing a commotion in the community.
The week started off with a booming surge for all the coins in the market. But it turns out that Mt. Gox, one of the most controversial exchange platform which was declared bankrupt is yet again accused of being involved in the price fluctuations.
The defunct Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Mt Gox has moved 16,000 bitcoins (an amount worth about $141 million) from its vaults to an unknown address, sparking concerns of an imminent price crash. According to CryptoGround, which monitors Mt Gox's remaining wallets, the bitcoins were removed from four separate addresses in increments of approximately 2,000, with 0 BTC remaining in each wallet that the funds were extracted from.
The moving of the funds, first spotted by The Next Web, is the first time in over three months that the former exchange has moved any of its assets. The transactions sparked questions about whether Nobuaki Kobayashi, the Tokyo lawyer in charge of Mt. Gox’s estate, is preparing to sell the funds in order to compensate the bankrupt company’s creditors. Whatever the reason, it is probabke thay the sale of such a large amount of bitcoins could have a significant impact on cryptocurrency markets.
Some have speculated that Wednesday’s sharp market decline could have been spurred by Kobayashi selling the coins to an OTC buyer at a below-market rate. Though the coins would have only just been delivered today, the theoretical buyer could have sold coins already in their possession at the market rate, profiting from arbitrage but driving the price lower.
How will the move affect the position of bitcoin in the crypto market, is currently a hot topic in the cryptocurrency community.