UPDATE: Mt. Gox moves billions of dollars in bitcoin ahead of anticipated payouts
Quick Take
- A Mt. Gox bitcoin wallet transferred around $3.1 billion in bitcoin to a currently unlabeled address on Tuesday.
- Crypto exchange Kraken later reported receiving bitcoin and bitcoin cash transfers from the Rehabilitation Trustee.
At 8:12 a.m. UTC on Tuesday, a Mt. Gox labeled address sent over 48,641 BTC ($3.1 billion) to the unlabeled address "3JQie."
The large movement followed what was presumed to be a test transaction at 5:13 a.m. UTC when a Mt. Gox wallet transferred 0.021 BTC ($1,320) to an unknown address. At 6:39 a.m. UTC, Mt. Gox also transferred 44,000 BTC ($2.8 billion) internally.
At 6:49 a.m. UTC, a bitcoin wallet known to be associated with Mt. Gox transferred nearly 42,588 BTC ($2.7 billion) to the previously unlabeled address, "18vjn," according to blockchain analytics platform Arkham. "18vjn" was later labeled as a Mt. Gox internal address by Arkham on Tuesday.
A few hours later, crypto exchange Kraken, one of the firms selected to manage Mt. Gox creditor payments, told clients in an email it had received a pair of bitcoin and bitcoin cash transfers from the Mt. Gox Rehabilitation Trustee, according to a screenshot in the Mt. Gox creditor Telegram group. Kraken later confirmed to The Block that the email was genuine. Arkham said the "3JQie" address was most likely associated with Kraken, and the funds currently remain unspent.
Mt. Gox transfers
Two Japanese exchanges, Bitbank and SBI VC Trade, previously received and seemingly distributed their allocated funds — doing so within hours rather than the maximum two weeks they agreed to.
Other firms selected for the creditor distributions, BitGo, Bitstamp and Kraken, had yet to receive their payments and have varying payout deadlines of up to 20 days, 60 days and 90 days, respectively.
The movements come ahead of its impending approximate $9 billion worth of bitcoin repayments to creditors.
The defunct exchange filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after multiple heists saw upwards of 850,000 BTC stolen.
The price of bitcoin dropped from roughly $65,000 to around $63,000 in the hours surrounding the latest transfers on Tuesday, before recovering.
Updated with additional information.
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