The world’s largest cryptocurrency has been under pressure recently due to news of the collapse of Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, which is preparing to distribute $9 billion worth of coins to users.
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Cryptocurrency prices fell on Friday as investors focused on cashing out nearly $9 billion to users of collapsed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.
By 10:50 a.m. London time, Bitcoin had fallen about 6% in 24 hours to $54,500.53, the first time it has traded below $55,000 since Feb. 27, according to data from CoinGecko.
Rival cryptocurrency Ether fell about 9% to $2,872.10.
In total, the entire cryptocurrency market has lost more than $170 billion in combined market cap over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.
Nobuaki Kobayashi, the bankruptcy trustee of Mount Gox, said in a statement on Friday: statement It has started paying off some creditors in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash through a number of dedicated cryptocurrency exchanges.
The Mt. Gox trustee did not specify how much money was transferred to these exchanges.
He noted that the remaining funds will be returned to creditors once a series of conditions are met, including confirmation of the validity of the registered accounts and completion of discussions between the trustee and the designated cryptocurrency exchanges.
Kobayashi wrote that the trustee is still working to ensure “payments can be made safely and securely,” and urged “eligible rehabilitation creditors to wait for a period of time.”
This comes after a small amount of bitcoin was moved from wallets linked to Mt. Gox, according to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, with the largest movement being a $24 transfer to Japanese crypto exchange Bitbank.
Bitbank is among the beneficiaries listed to support payments.
Recently, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has been under pressure due to news of the collapse of Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, which is preparing to distribute $9 billion worth of coins to users. This flooding of the market is expected to lead to some major sell-offs.
In a further sign of pressure on cryptocurrency markets, the German government on Thursday sold nearly 3,000 bitcoins — worth roughly $175 million at today’s prices — from a 50,000-bitcoin pile seized in connection with the Movie2k movie piracy operation, according to Arkham Intelligence.
Arcam, a company that tracks German bitcoin wallets, said the government still holds more than 40,000 bitcoins worth more than $2 billion.
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