The world’s largest cryptocurrency has been under pressure lately amid news of the collapsed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, which is preparing to distribute around $9 billion worth of coins to users.
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Cryptocurrencies fell on Friday as investors focused on the payout of nearly $9 billion to users of bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.
At 10:50 a.m. London time, the price of bitcoin fell by almost 6% in 24 hours to $54,500.53. This is the first time the price has fallen below $55,000 since February 27, data from CoinGecko shows.
Rival token ether fell around 9% to $2,872.10.
According to data from CoinGecko, the total market capitalization of the entire cryptocurrency market has fallen by over $170 billion in the past 24 hours.
On Friday, Mt. Gox bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi said in a statement that it had begun making repayments in bitcoin and bitcoin cash to some creditors through a number of designated crypto exchanges.
Mt. Gox’s trustee did not specify how much money was transferred to these exchanges.
He noted that the remaining funds would be repaid to creditors once a number of conditions were met, including confirming the validity of the registered accounts and finalizing discussions between the trustee and the designated crypto exchanges.
The trustee is still working to ensure that repayments “can be made safely and securely,” Kobayashi wrote, and he urged “eligible creditors for rehabilitation to wait a little longer.”
It comes after a small amount of bitcoin was moved out of wallets associated with Mt. Gox, according to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, with the largest movement being a transfer of $24 to Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank.
Bitbank is one of the recipients named in support of the refunds.
Recently, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has been under pressure following the news of the collapsed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, which was preparing to distribute around $9 billion worth of coins to users. This dumping of coins on the market is expected to lead to some significant selling.
The German government also put pressure on the crypto markets by selling about 3,000 bitcoins on Thursday, worth about $175 million at current prices. According to Arkham Intelligence, a stack of 50,000 bitcoins was seized in connection with the movie piracy ring Movie2k.
Arkham, which monitors the German bitcoin wallet, noted that the government still holds more than 40,000 bitcoins, worth more than $2 billion.