Mt. Gox Plans Major Bitcoin Transfer Amid Market Volatility : Is Crypto Crash Looming?

The defunct crypto exchange Mt Gox is now planning to move the remaining 80.5K Bitcoins at a time when Bitcoin struggles to surpass the $70,000 level. It has nearly sent 50K Bitcoins in the past two weeks to creditors on Kraken and Bitstamp. While creditors faced some withdrawal issues on the exchange last week, they are largely resolved now. 

Mt. Gox and US Government Transfers Add Pressure on Bitcoin

According to data from Arkham Intelligence,a Mt Gox address 12Rgp transferred 0.02 BTC worth $1350 to another address beginning with 1Adb. The same address also transferred 0.0001 BTC to the address starting with bc1q. This suggests that Mt Gox is conducting test transfers before moving the rest of the 80,128 BTC it holds, valued at $5.35 billion. 

The Mt. Gox creditors are also willing to hold their BTC with diamond hands. Despite volatility, the Bitcoin price has effectively absorbed a large part of the selling pressure. But on late Monday, BTC once again came under the selling pressure after facing rejection at $70,000.

After breaking above $70,000, popular market analysts like PlanB predicted that the Bitcoin price rally could extend to $150K by year-end. PlanB also predicted that the Bitcoin price would double in the next 3-5 months. 

US Government Bitcoin Transfers

Another reason behind the pressure to sell Bitcoin is the US government’s transfer of Bitcoin. 

As reported by Arkham intelligence, the US government moved 29,799.99 BTC, worth $2 billion, to an unknown P2WPKH wallet on Monday. Despite this transfer, the US government wallet still holds 183,439 BTC, valued at over $12 billion.

This development follows Donald Trump’s revealing strategy to keep 100% of all the bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires into the future if he is elected. However, the latest BTC transfer by the US government fuels speculations of a major sell off coming up as signaled by Peter Schiff in his latest tweet. 

The exchange has recently executed a series of Bitcoin transfers totaling about $5.52B . After conducting preliminary test transactions, the exchange moved Bitcoin worth $2.85b to an undisclosed wallet. Subsequently, it transferred another $2.47B from a cold storage wallet to an unknown address, while also internally shifting a portion of its Bitcoin holdings between cold wallets. 

Analysts Predict BTC To Rebound

On the technical side, analysts predict that if the $65,800 level holds, the BTC could rebound to $67,400 or $68,100. This week, the US Fed meeting will take place, and Chairman Jerome Powell will address inflation and the central bank’s plans for rate cuts.