Mt Gox, once among the most popular names in the world of cryptocurrencies - has become a nightmare for many over the years. Following the loss of over 800,000 Bitcoins in 2014 - Mt Gox has become an infamous name in the markets. Those who had stored their Bitcoins with the exchange continue to await compensation for their losses. The process has picked pace lately - as a Mt Gox trustee has been selling the recovered Bitcoins in bits and pieces - to pay off these people.
The Mt Gox trustee, however, became infamously known as the man who almost single-handedly brought the cryptocurrency industry to a standstill. Nobuaki Kobayashi, the bankruptcy trustee for Mt Gox is in possession of these Bitcoins - and he sells them at regular intervals to compensate those who lost the Bitcoins.
As per latest reports, the Mt Gox trustee has now sold off another 16,000 Bitcoins and 16,000 Bitcoin Cash - worth almost $160 Million in total. For those who wish to check out the movement of these cryptocurrencies by themselves, you can do so by using our Mt. Gox Cold Wallet Monitor - where 2,000 Bitcoins from eight wallet addresses were consolidated in one address - and 16,000 Bitcoin Cash was also moved in a series of eight transactions.
With these kinds of sales taking place - there’s a chance that markets may be impacted and the price of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash may drop down for a short period of time. While it is practically impossible to judge if Kobayashi’s actions are going to result in a fall in the prices, there’s a chance that it may do so. However, considering that there’s a strong wave of bullish momentum - it is unlikely that the markets would be deeply impacted.
In the past, some decisions made by Kobayashi to sell cryptocurrencies seemed rather odd. While he has been assigned as the bankruptcy trustee of Mt Gox and has the right to sell the Bitcoins at any time as per his discretion, allegations were made that he might be trying to manipulate the markets on the basis of how he was selling them at strategic points in time - and crashing the markets. It would be interesting to see the impact of this latest round of Bitcoin dump on the price of BTC.
However - the absurd situation here is - that when those Bitcoins were stolen, the price per BTC was around $600. However, the price per Bitcoin is now closing in on the $10,000 mark, having almost touched the $20,000 mark late last year. As per Japan’s banking laws, those who held their Bitcoins in Mt Gox would be compensated for the loss that they had made as per 2014 standards. If they lost 2 Bitcoins, they’d be paid about $1200 based on the price of Bitcoin at that time - and not $18,000 which would be an accurate figure when one looks at the current prices.
With the amount that remains after all these people have been paid off, rest of the money would be distributed among the stakeholders of the company. Former CEO Mark Karpeles is a majority stakeholder, owning 88% of the company. However, in a Reddit AMA session, Karpeles clarified that he does not want those Billion dollars - as he wants to ensure that those who were affected get compensated properly. Karpeles is now the CTO of London Trust Media - a company which invests in VPN services and cryptocurrencies.