u.today
Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market cap, collapsed to $53,350 on the Bitstamp exchange, the lowest level in five months, at 4:19 UTC.
This comes after Mt. Gox, the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange, transferred a staggering $2.71 billion worth of Bitcoin to a new wallet.
Last month, the exchange announced that it would start paying back the victims of the 2014 hack.
The announcement ended up being a major bearish headwind for Bitcoin due to the sheer amount of selling pressure from creditors.
However, it is worth mentioning that banking giant JPMorgan recently predicted that this selling pressure will not be long-lasting. Its analysts have predicted that the Bitcoin price would be able to start rebounding in late summer.
In fact, according to JPMorgan, some creditors might continue to hold their coins either due to tax reasons or due to their belief in future price appreciation.
Apart from the Mt. Gox distributions, Bitcoin bulls have also been hit hard by a bout of selling caused by the German government.
As reported by U.Today, Joana Cotar, an independent member of the Bundestag, recently called on the government to stop selling the cryptocurrency and highlighted its diversification properties among other key benefits.
"An uninformative metric"
According to data provided by cryptocurrency analytics platform Santiment, social media is showing historic levels of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) based on the number of mentions of "sell."
However, Bitwise Invest CEO Hunter Horsley is convinced that nothing has changed about the largest cryptocurrency after the recent price crash. "Price has been an uninformative metric of late. Keep calm and carry on," he said in a social media post.