Bitcoin
Bitcoin Drops to $54K After Mt Gox Begins Distributions By Investing.com
Investing.com– Bitcoin fell sharply in early Asian trading on Monday, reversing a modest recovery seen over the weekend and hitting a four-month low on concerns over a flood of token supply from now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt Gox.
The token has fallen 5.8% over the past 24 hours to $54,601.7 as of 9:28 PM ET (01:28 GMT), coming close to its weakest level since late February. The token has also broken below a key support at $55,000.
Bitcoin has been suffering steep losses over the past two weeks amid concerns over token distributions by Mt Gox. The exchange’s administrators said last week that they had begun distributing tokens stolen during a 2014 hack back to creditors via a number of exchanges, though they did not specify how many tokens were being returned.
Wallets associated with the exchange were seen holding around $9 billion worth of Bitcoin earlier this year.
Mt Gox has been a major point of contention in cryptocurrency markets, as traders have speculated that given the massive rise in the price of Bitcoin over the past decade, recipients of the token would likely sell it on the open market, increasing the supply of the token.
Fears of such a scenario spurred widespread dumping of the token, with several Bitcoin whale wallets also coming online and mobilizing their assets for sales.
Bitcoin’s selloff spread to the broader cryptocurrency market, with the world’s No. 2 token falling 7.3% to a two-month low.