Will 10k BTC Moved By Mt. Gox Hacker Increase Bitcoin’s Selling Pressure?

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Mt. Gox hacker has moved 10k BTC for the first time in over seven years.

10k BTC from a BTC-e exchange wallet associated with the 2014 Mt. Gox hack is on the move, according to a tweet from CryptoQuant chief Ki Young Ju today.

Notably, from this total, 65 BTC has found its way to HitBTC, with the CryptoQuant chief asserting that it is not a government auction. 

PeckShieldAlert also confirmed the transaction while giving more details. According to the blockchain security alert service, the Bitcoin first received in February 2014 was split and sent to two different wallets. The first wallet received 3,500 BTC, while the second received 6500 BTC. 

#PeckShieldAlert Seems like a wallet related to Mt. Gox has moved 10k $BTC (~$166.8M) to two addresses bc1ql7…6v7 (no further movement) and bc1qp0…zrsv (balance: 3,299.99999 $BTC), ~65 $BTC seems to be sent to hitbtc
MtGox Exchange’s Cold Wallets have not moved since 2018 pic.twitter.com/eaTPUVSOvA

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) November 24, 2022

It is worth noting that the 6500 BTC has not moved. However, the hacker has split the 3500 BTC culminating in 65 BTC finding its way to HitBTC. 

Ki Young Ju quoting a previous tweet from August, reminded investors that “Old Bitcoin is a bearish thing in most cases.” In addition, in response to a user today, he noted that while it is unclear when the hackers will sell all the BTC, it is reasonable to mark it as potential sell-side liquidity. Notably, the analyst in August highlighted that these old Bitcoin whales distribute their holdings to several crypto exchanges in small deposits to dodge KYC requirements. 

However, per a HitBTC blog post from September, deposits for unverified accounts are not limited. Nonetheless, it limits withdrawals for unverified users to 1 BTC daily and 5 BTC monthly. 

Notably, the CryptoQuant chief has urged the exchange to suspend the account. However, at press time, there is yet to be a response from the Chinese-owned crypto exchange.

It bears mentioning that Mt. Gox was once the largest Bitcoin exchange, handling over 70% of all BTC transactions at its peak. However, it collapsed after an exploit allowed hackers to make off with over 740k BTC in user deposits in 2014. 

The crypto markets have recently faced a lot of selling pressure due to growing fear, uncertainty, and doubt. First, FTX, one of the leading crypto exchanges, collapsed spectacularly. Now, speculations indicate that Genesis, crypto’s biggest lender, is also on the ropes.

Despite all these, it is worth noting that the crypto markets rallied yesterday in response to the Federal Open Market Committee’s minutes which indicated that the Fed is leaning towards slowing down rate hikes.

Bitcoin is trading at the $16,666.23 price point, up 1.22% in the last 24 hours.

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