Bitcoin
Steady at $61K as Mt. Gox sales approach By Investing.com
Investing.com – The price of Bitcoin was little changed on Wednesday and suffered sharp losses last week as fears of selling pressure from distributions from defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox weighed on sentiment.
Dollar strength weighed on broader cryptocurrency prices as traders remained broadly tilted towards the greenback in anticipation of key US inflation data this Friday. A readout on first quarter economic growth is also available.
rose 0.9% in the last 24 hours to $61,597.0 at 01:30 ET (05:30 GMT). The world’s largest cryptocurrency fell to $59,000 earlier this week as risk appetite remained largely negative.
Mt. Gox liquidators say Bitcoin sales will begin in July
Liquidators of defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, which collapsed due to a hack in 2014, said this week they will begin distributing tokens stolen from customers in the first week of July.
Liquidators earlier this year mobilized about $9 billion worth of Bitcoin from cold wallets — an event that was expected to precede a potential distribution. They did not specify in their announcement this week what the scale of the distributions would be.
Customers who receive their stolen assets will now do so at a much higher price, which could lead them to offload sales. Such a scenario presents enormous selling pressure on Bitcoin.
which will also be distributed by Mt Gox, also suffered heavy losses this week.
The token was already under pressure from reports suggesting that German authorities had also begun selling thousands of Bitcoins confiscated from a piracy website.
Broader sentiment towards cryptocurrencies was already under pressure due to waning risk appetite as traders turned to more stable assets such as the dollar amid fears of high US interest rates.
Crypto investment products, specifically Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, were experiencing two weeks of sharp outflows.
Crypto Price Today: Altcoins See Some Bids as Bitcoin Sentiment Worsens
Among the broader crypto markets, altcoins posted some gains this week as the potential for increased selling pressure on Bitcoin spurred some flows into other crypto assets.
The world’s No. 2 token rose 0.2% to $3,382.25, while and added 0.8% and 0.5%, respectively.
fell behind, falling 1%.
Among meme tokens, it rose 1.5%, while it added 2.1%.