Mt. Gox Moves $2.2 Billion in Bitcoin to New Wallet

The Mt. Gox Trustee said 17,000 creditors have successfully been repaid through designated crypto exchanges in July.

Bankrupt crypto exchange Mt. Gox moved another 33,960 BTC worth around $2.2 billion to a new wallet address late on Tuesday, according to data from Arkham. The latest transfer brings Mt. Gox’s main wallet balance down from the 142,000 BTC it started out with to 32,899 BTC.

Arkham believes that the new wallet address funded by Mt. Gox likely belongs to BitGo – the fifth crypto exchange that the Mt. Gox Trustee is working with to return creditor funds.

Earlier this month, the Mt. Gox Trustee finally began the process of repaying creditors who lost funds on the exchange over a decade ago. In a statement on July 31, the Mt. Gox Trustee said that 17,000 creditors were issued repayments in bitcoin and bitcoin cash through the month of July.

The Trustee noted that the repayments took place on July 5, 16, 24 and 31 through the designated crypto exchanges. The exchanges elected to serve as custodians are Kraken, Bitstamp, SBI VC Trade, Bitbank and BitGo.

The long drawn out bankruptcy process was expected to bring headwinds to bitcoin’s price as creditors finally received the opportunity to cash out. However, because the timeline for payouts depends on the crypto exchanges themselves, not all creditors eligible for a payout have received their funds.

Kraken was the first to distribute funds to creditors, but some users on the Mt. Gox insolvency subreddit have claimed that they are unable to withdraw funds for reasons like their “account level was not intermediate/pro” and a high volume of verification requests. Meanwhile, some Bistamp users said that they were required to book in a “mandatory video call with customer support” to be eligible for withdrawals. 

According to analysts at Glassnode, the behviour of creditors who have received their funds so far, coupled with the liquidity of the bitcoin market, suggest that sell-side pressure might be lighter than expected.

“From a psychological perspective, this represents the final chapter in a major market overhang over the industry since 2013,” said Glasnode.