The news that Mt.Gox transferred 140,000 BTC from its account wallet has caused a huge discussion in the community.
On the one hand, the issue of compensation for Mt.Gox creditors has once again attracted attention. On the other hand, will 140,000 BTC be dumped into the market, causing huge price fluctuations?
The current price of BTC is $68,000. There is considerable pressure for it to rise in the short term. It may only be a matter of time before it stabilizes at $70,000, but time is going back and forth.
Mt.Gox is an exchange founded by Jed McCarey in July 2010. It is located in Shibuya District, Tokyo, Japan. Due to its homonym, Mt.Gox is nicknamed "Mentougou Exchange" by Chinese users.
In 2010, when BTC was just beginning to develop, it was very inconvenient for ordinary users to trade Bitcoin. Jed saw the market demand and opportunity and founded Mt.Gox.
On July 18, 2010, the first trading day of MT.GOX, 20 BTC were traded. At that time, the price of BTC was 5 cents. One month later, MT.GOX became the largest Bitcoin trading platform at that time.
As the number of Bitcoin transaction orders increased, Jed invited Mark Cappelae to work part-time at MT.GOX to process transactions, and later sold the website to Mark in March 2011.
As the volume of Bitcoin transactions continues to grow, Mt.Gox has also become a focus of hackers.
In January 2011, Mt. Gox was hacked for the first time, with hackers stealing $45,000 worth of Bitcoin and other digital currencies.
In February 2014, Mt. Gox suddenly announced that about 850,000 bitcoins (worth about $450 million at the time) had been stolen from the platform, and subsequently suspended all transactions and filed for bankruptcy protection.
The theft of Bitcoin from Mt.Gox caused an earthquake in the crypto market, with the price of BTC falling from a peak of $951.39 to $309.87, leading to the first Bitcoin crash, a drop of more than 67%.
Many people who came into contact with BTC at that time bought them from Mt.Gox and had the platform hold BTC on their behalf. However, after Mt.Gox was stolen and the platform went bankrupt, many people lost their BTC and their assets became zero.
From then on, the creditors began a years-long journey of appealing for compensation.
On May 28, 2024, a large amount of transfers suddenly appeared in the account address of Mt.Gox, which had been bankrupt for ten years. In the next 6 hours, Mt.Gox transferred 141,685 bitcoins in 10 transactions, with a total value of more than US$9.7 billion.
If these more than 140,000 BTC are sold in the short term, it may cause larger price fluctuations.
The sorting out of the Mt.Gox wallet trends also means that creditors’ compensation has gone one step further. When Mt.Gox was stolen and filed for bankruptcy protection, many users’ BTC assets were wiped out and it faced bankruptcy.
If the compensation is successfully fulfilled, the BTC that was worth more than 900 US dollars at that time will become more than 68,000 US dollars now, which has increased by more than 70 times; although the compensation cannot be paid according to the amount of BTC lost at that time, it can be regarded as passively holding BTC and gaining the increase in the past 10 years.
A friend in the group spent 760,000 yuan to buy 265 BTC from Mt.Gox in 2013. The cost of BTC was about 500 US dollars at that time.
With the bankruptcy of Mt. Gox in 2014, his 265 BTC were instantly lost.
Fortunately, the compensation of Mt.Gox has been progressing. His 265 BTC can be used to compensate 40 BTC. According to the current price, 40 BTC are worth more than 2.7 million US dollars, nearly 20 million yuan, which is also a huge return.
If he holds the BTC in his own hands, I wonder if he will sell it in the middle, or lose money on the contract, or lose money on the investment?
But due to the bankruptcy of Mt. Gox, he passively held BTC and benefited from the 70-fold increase of BTC from US$900 to US$68,000 in the past 10 years.
It can be considered a blessing in disguise. Of course, this will only count after the compensation is actually executed and received.
In the crypto market in 2010, Binance, OKX, and Coinbase were not yet online. It was the world of Mt. Gox.
At its peak, Mt.Gox's trading volume accounted for 90% of Bitcoin's trading volume. Users from all over the world traded BTC from Mt.Gox, including a large number of Chinese users.
In 2014, Mt.Gox was stolen and the price of BTC fell to around $300. Some people lost confidence in BTC, but at the same time, a large number of new users continued to accumulate. BTC experienced great ups and downs, and those who stayed got huge opportunities.
The crypto market is a long-term game. Everything that does not return to zero has new possibilities, and there are always twists and turns. Always believe that good things are about to happen. In addition to the contract returning to zero, if the position is liquidated and returns to zero, it will really be zero.
However, at any time, it is safest to hold your own wallet mnemonic. Any reliance on a third-party platform will involve huge uncertainties.
The above is just my personal opinion, not investment advice. I am Chu Xiaolian, and I am paying attention to the crypto market and web3.