10,000 Bitcoins related to Mt.Gox moved amidst market turmoil

Sahana Kiran
Bitcoin
Source – Unsplash

From the collapse of prominent platforms to Bitcoin [BTC] revisiting the $15K zone, the community has been seeing the industry take several turns lately. Along with this, an array of dormant wallets were seen making a comeback. Earlier today, it was brought to light that about 10,000 BTC from a wallet associated with the defunct crypto exchange BTC-e was moved.

The main wallet sent a total of 10,000 BTC worth $167 million to two unknown wallets. While one of the wallets amassed 3,500 BTC worth $58,36,8800, it soon sent out 300 BTC to another wallet. This was further carried on and split among several other wallets.

Mt.Gox was the first major hack that hit the crypto industry. This attack caused the loss of a whopping 744,408 BTC. BTC-e was hacked and was forced to shut down permanently hack in 2014. It should be noted that this was one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges in the world. It entailed more than 70 percent of Bitcoin trading volume across the world prior to the hack.

While speculations about the movement began pouring in, Ki Young Ju of CryptoQuant noted that it could be criminals trying to move these funds.

As seen in the above thread, this major movement is likely bearish for the market. Since the aforementioned Bitcoins were minted during “the lawless era” it is likely to be owned by wallets that haven’t undergone KYC.

And as mentioned by the founder of CryptoQuant, about 65 BTC worth $1,083,992 was sent to HitBTC. The exchange was further urged to suspend the account for its suspicious activity.

Why are these ancient wallets moving their Bitcoin now?

It was recently highlighted that long-term Bitcoin holders were at a loss. While Bitcoin is speculated to sink further down, these holders could be getting rid of their holdings before they encounter more loss. Ki Young Ju, however, pointed out that the individuals involved with the Mt.Gox hack were still bagging significant profit.

When asked about why these hackers were moving funds now with Bitcoin at $16K and not during the bull run, the CryptoQuant founder said,

“Well, they don’t care. It’s 55x profit for them anyway. They got these Bitcoins when the price was $297 in Jan 2015, and the BTC price is $16,617 now, so approx. PnL is 5,594%.”

While it isn’t sure if they would sell the assets, he pointed out the risk of the rest of the funds being sold. He further added, “What we do know is that 10k BTC was moved by criminals and could be potential sell-side liquidity since they sent 0.6% of their assets to exchanges.”

At press time, Bitcoin was trading for $16,674 with a 1.13 percent surge over the last 24 hours.