Kraken confirms receiving Mt. Gox creditor Bitcoin

At least one major centralized crypto exchange has confirmed receiving Bitcoin allocated for Mt. Gox creditor repayments. 

Kraken announced it received undisclosed sums of Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) from Mt. Gox’s trustee, designated for user reimbursements. Emails sent to affected users and seen by crypto.news on Tuesday noted that Kraken plans to distribute crypto to creditor accounts within 14 days. 

The confirmation arrived hours after the defunct BTC exchange transferred an estimated $6 billion in Bitcoin to unlabelled addresses. 

According to Arkham Intelligence, the movements started with test transactions from a wallet tied to the bankrupt platform around 5:13 a.m. UTC. Between 6:39 a.m. UTC and 8:12 a.m. UTC, 47,229 BTC worth about $2.9 billion and 48,641 Bitcoin valued at $3.1 billion were transferred to separate addresses. 

Mt. Gox saga mounts sell pressure on Bitcoin

Several successful hacks battered Mt. Gox between 2011 and 2014, eventually leading to the platform’s bankruptcy declaration in February 2014. Criminals stole more than 950,000 BTC, which is currently worth over $60 billion. 

Despite the large transfers, the defunct Bitcoin exchange still holds some $8.9 billion in BTC and is expected to settle around $9 billion of crypto creditor repayments. 

Following Tuesday’s transactions, Bitcoin’s price declined to around $63,000 after trading above $65,000 on Monday. The drop was likely due to presumptive sell pressure expected over the next two weeks. At press time, Bitcoin showed strength and was seen edging back toward $64,000.