Rumours have surfaced, once again, that the bankruptcy trustee for Mt. Gox is attempting to sell off more Bitcoin. Investors, including a reporter for CNBC, have been approached with an offer of as many as 7,000 Bitcoin, amounting to approximately $150m worth of the cryptocurrency.
As seems to happen when there is any proposed sell-off, the Internet rumour mill has suggested that it is another Mt. Gox sell off, although the wallet used to transfer the bitcoin doesn’t coincide with any of Mt. Gox reported wallets and comes despite the belief that Nobuaki Kobayashi, the bankruptcy trustee for the case, would not be able to sell any more of the coin until the September creditor court case hearing.
The rumoured sell off could be the reason that Bitcoin prices have slumped below $7,500, although a lot of analysts (and I) had already predicted this move downwards. The market does tend to react negatively to rumours of a Mt. Gox sell off, because Kobayashi holds nearly 2 billion dollars of Bitcoin, which are supposed to be used to pay off those that were negatively affected by the bankruptcy of the former exchange.
About Mt. Gox
Mt. Gox, which is short for Magic: The Gathering Online eXchange. The service was initially established as a means for players of the online card game to trade their virtual cards, but in 2010, it launched as an exchange where users could trade their Bitcoin.
At its peak, Mt. Gox handled around 70% of all Bitcoin transactions. The exchange suffered problems due to delayed deposits and withdrawals, and in February 2014, the exchange filed for bankruptcy stating that they had lost 750,000 of its customers’ Bitcoins and 100,000 of their own. They blamed hackers for stealing the coins and Mt. Gox customers opened lawsuits against them to retrieve their lost money.
The Big Sell-Off
In March 2018, Kobayashi confirmed rumours that trustees had sold 35,000 Bitcoin and nearly the same number of Bitcoin Cash, totalling just over $400m, which roughly equalled the level of claims submitted by claimants against the collapsed exchange. Experts reacted angrily to the sale, saying that it was irresponsible to sell that amount in one move, and blamed the significant drop in Bitcoin prices at the time to the move; something that Kobayashi himself refuted.
No More Sales Until September?
Following the sell off, Kobayashi said that he would consult with the court to determine when he would be permitted to sell more of the cryptocurrencies. The next court date is not scheduled until September of this year, so investors and analysts did not believe that another sell-off would occur until this time. However, whenever there are reports of a mass sell-off, rumours always concentrate on Mt. Gox, prices tend to fall, and further FUD causes prices to continue their downward movement.
The Start Of The Rumours
In this case, 7,000 Bitcoin were moved from an address to a crypto exchange, and some investors were approached directly to determine their interest in buying large volumes of the coin.
Is Kobayashi Really Selling Bitcoin To Reporters?
It seems highly unlikely, to me, that if Kobayashi was attempting to privately sell his stock of Bitcoin that he would approach a journalist from a well-known media outlet.
Not only is it unlikely that the reporter in question would have access to the $160m it would cost to buy 200,000 Bitcoins on offer, but it’s not just attracting media attention, it is outright inviting it. More likely is a big potential investor looking to manipulate prices downwards so that they can buy a stock of Bitcoin at considerably lower prices, following the inevitable FUD caused by the aftermath.
Whatever the case, though, it has had the potentially desired effect. BTC prices are heading south. In fact, they’re heading down to the $7,100 mark that I’ve been predicting for some weeks now.