Markets
Mt. Gox Plans Major Bitcoin Transfer Amid Market Volatility: Crypto Crash Coming?
Defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt Gox is now planning to move its remaining 80.5K Bitcoin as Bitcoin struggles to break above the $70,000 level. It has sent nearly 50K Bitcoin over the past two weeks to creditors on Kraken and Bitstamp. While creditors faced some withdrawal issues on the exchange last week, they are now largely resolved.
Mt. Gox and US Government Transfers Increase Pressure on Bitcoin
According to data from Arkham Intelligence, an Mt Gox address 12Rgp transferred 0.02 BTC worth $1350 to another address starting with 1Adb. The same address also transferred 0.0001 BTC to an address starting with bc1q. This suggests that Mt Gox is conducting test transfers before moving the rest of the 80,128 BTC it holds, worth $5.35 billion.
Even Mt. Gox lenders are willing to hold their BTC with diamond hands. Despite the volatility, the price of Bitcoin has effectively absorbed much of the selling pressure. But on Monday evening, BTC came under selling pressure again after meeting a rejection at $70,000.
After surpassing $70,000, popular market analysts like PlanB expected that the Bitcoin price rally could extend to $150K by the end of the year. PlanB also predicted that the price of Bitcoin will double in the next 3-5 months.
US Government Bitcoin Transfers
Another reason behind the pressure to sell Bitcoin is the transfer of Bitcoin by the United States government.
As reported by Arkham Intelligence, the US government transferred 29,799.99 BTC, worth $2 billion, to an unknown P2WPKH wallet on Monday. Despite this transfer, the US government wallet still contains 183,439 BTC, worth over $12 billion.
This development follows Donald Trump’s revealing strategy of keeping 100% of all bitcoin that the US government currently holds or acquires in the future if elected. However, the latest transfer of BTC by the US government fuels speculation of an impending large sell-off as reported by Peter Schiff in his last tweet.
The exchange recently conducted a series of Bitcoin transfers totaling approximately $5.52 billion. After conducting preliminary test transactions, the exchange moved $2.85 billion worth of Bitcoin to an undisclosed wallet. It then moved another $2.47 billion from a cold storage wallet to an unknown address, while also internally moving a portion of its Bitcoin between cold wallets.
Analysts Predict BTC Bounce
From a technical perspective, analysts predict that if the $65,800 level holds, BTC could bounce to $67,400 or $68,100. The US Fed will meet this week, and Chairman Jerome Powell will address inflation and the central bank’s plans for rate cuts.