Bitcoin Dives to $61,000 as Mt. Gox Says BTC Repayments Begin Next Week

More than a decade after losing their funds, Mt. Gox creditors will start receiving repayments in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash commencing in early July, according to a note by Mt. Gox Rehabilitation Trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi.

The note suggests that compliance measures and exchange cooperation have already taken place.

“We have taken time to ensure safe and reliable repayment to creditors, including technical remedies for safe repayments, compliance with financial regulations in each country, and discussion of repayment arrangements with the cryptocurrency exchanges,” the note said.

Mt. Gox, the now-defunct Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, once processed more than 70% of Bitcoin’s trading volume before ceasing operations in 2014.

Market participants were spooked as they feared that the proceeds would lead to an imminent sell-off across BTC and BCH.

The Bitcoin price fell to $61,060, a drop of 6.5% from this time yesterday, and hit its lowest point of the day. The leading cryptocurrency has since bounced back slightly and is currently trading for $61,500 at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has lost 9% compared to yesterday and is currently trading for $352.03 according to CoinGecko data.

Derivatives traders have suffered a massive blow, as $90.78 million worth of Bitcoin longs have been liquidated in the past 12 hours, according to derivatives analytics platform CoinGlass.

This fear by market participants might be warranted, as the three Mt. Gox wallets combined have 141,686 BTC, worth approximately $8.71 billion, according to on-chain analytics platform Spot On Chain.

On May 28, Bitcoin’s price dropped after funds were transferred to an unknown wallet. On the same day, it was revealed that repayments had not commenced yet.

Last year, it was revealed that the deadline to repay investors had been pushed back to October 2024. This means the entire reimbursement process can potentially take up to 4 months.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.