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Bitcoin (BTC) Prices Drop to Nearly $62,000 as Mt. Gox Set to Kick Off BTC and Bitcoin Cash Refunds
Defunct bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox said Monday it will begin distributing assets stolen to customers in a 2014 hack in the first week of July, years after continually pushing back deadlines.
“The Rehabilitation Trustee is preparing to make redemptions in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash under the rehabilitation plan,” Trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi said in a statement on Monday published on the Mt.Gox website.
“Refunds will be made from early July 2024,” Kobayashi said, adding that due diligence and some security measures will be needed before payments are made.
Refunds are largely believed to increase selling pressure on bitcoin (BTC) markets as early investors will receive assets at a much higher value than those introduced before 2013, making them likely to sell at least some of the holdings, traders said.
Mt. Gox was once the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, handling over 70% of all bitcoin transactions in its early years. In early 2014, hackers attacked the exchange, resulting in the loss of approximately 740,000 bitcoins ($15 billion at current prices). The hack was the largest of many attacks on the exchange that occurred from 2010-2013.
In May, the exchange moved over 140,000 BTC, worth around $9 billion, from cold wallets to an unknown address for the first time in 13 transactions, marking the first on-chain wallet movements for the first time in five years.
Bitcoin prices fell from above $62,300 in early Asian hours to below $62,100 in the minutes following the release of the Mt. Gox statement, data from CoinGecko shows.