Mt. Gox Continues Bitcoin Repayments, $2.7B Still Held

Mt. Gox transfers 12,000 Bitcoin (worth $709.4 million) to a new wallet, marking its first major move since July.

This significant transfer was made to a previously inactive wallet address beginning with “1PuQB.” It is the exchange’s first major Bitcoin movement in weeks.

In addition to the 12,000 Bitcoin transfer, Mt. Gox also shifted 1,265 BTC, worth $74.8 million, to an address labeled as a Mt. Gox cold wallet on Arkham Intelligence. These funds have not moved since the transaction, sparking speculation about their purpose.

While some believe this might indicate a preparation to repay creditors, Galaxy’s head of research, Alex Thorn, suggests otherwise. Thorn posits that most of the transferred funds may still belong to the Mt. Gox estate has been moved to fresh cold storage, with only a small portion of $74.5 million intended for distribution.

This latest transaction follows a similar large-scale movement on July 30, where Mt. Gox transferred 47,229 BTC to three unknown wallets over three hours. At that time, Arkham Intelligence suggested that 33,105 Bitcoin had been sent to an address managed by BitGo, a custodian working with the Mt. Gox Trustee to facilitate the return of funds to creditors.

On-chain analytics platform Lookonchain offers more detail, noting that 12,000.17 BTC, equivalent to $709.44 million, appears to have been sent to a Bitstamp address. This transfer is reportedly part of a broader repayment process that began in July, where Mt. Gox shifted 95,523 BTC to various exchanges, including BitGo, Bitstamp, Kraken, SBI VC Trade, and bitbank.

Major transfers included 48,641 BTC to Kraken and 33,964 BTC to BitGo. These large movements may have played a role in Bitcoin’s recent price volatility, with the price swinging between $45,000 and $70,000.

Even with these repayments, Mt. Gox still holds around 46,164 BTC, currently valued at $2.7 billion. As of the latest market data, Bitcoin is trading at $59,370.83, down 2.56% in the last 24 hours, potentially reflecting ongoing market reactions to these substantial transfers.