An address containing a large amount of Bitcoin owned by long-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox just moved funds.
About seven hours before press time, nearly 6,620 BTC worth about $352.7 million were transferred from a Mt. Gox address to an unknown wallet, according to data provided by blockchain intelligence service Arkham Intelligence. The data shows that the exchange is in a heightened level of activity after yesterday’s reports of another Bitcoin transaction worth $2.8 billion.
Market data shows the Bitcoin price has not reacted to the transfer in any evident way, trading laterally mostly between $97,000 and $98,000 after it occurred. At the time of writing, BTC is trading 4.8% lower than it was this time yesterday, according to CoinGecko data.
"Typically, announcements from Mt. Gox have a negative impact on the market, often causing Bitcoin's price to decline," notes Min Jung, an analyst and researcher from Presto Labs, told Decrypt earlier this week about the much larger transfer.
The reduced impact of Mt. Gox transactions is likely to be attributed to the bullish market sentiment and a recent announcement by the Mt. Gox redistribution team that it’s postponing creditor repayment by one year. This means that until then, no transaction on Mt. Gox’s part will result in an immediate increase in sell pressure on Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash.
Founder of Obchakevich Research Alex Obchakevich told Decrypt that another reason may be that “the market is becoming more mature every year” and the capitalization and trading volumes are increasing by billions with the liquidity “growing incredibly fast.”
Therefore, he reasoned, “$353 million does not affect the market volatility much anymore.”
Mt. Gox is shorthand for “Magic: The Gathering Online eXchange,” a name given to the exchange when it still dealt in trading cards at launch in 2010, before Bitcoin was introduced on the platform. After the service pivoted to Bitcoin it captured the almost totality of the market and became the most popular way to buy and sell the world’s first cryptocurrency online.
As a result of a 2014 hack, Mt. Gox lost almost 750,000 BTC owned by its customers and 100,000 of its own. This amount of Bitcoin was equivalent to around 7% of all Bitcoin in circulation at the time.
That’s why in the past, news surrounding Mt. Gox creditor repayment has held a lot of sway over market sentiment. Arkham Intelligence data shows that as of press time the exchange’s wallets still contain 39,705 BTC worth nearly $3.9 billion.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.