The trustee of the now-defunct Mt Gox exchange, Nobuaki Kobayashi, recently revealed he believes the sale of the roughly $400 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) he did in the past few months didn’t affect cryptocurrency market prices.
Kobayashi’s words came through a recently released transcript of a Q&A session at the 10th Mt Gox creditors’ meeting, which involved questions on Kobayashi’s recent sale of about 35,000 BTC and 34,000 BCH. The sales were part of an attempt to refund users who lost money because of Mt Gox’s collapse.
Mt Gox was notably once a dominant cryptocurrency exchange, but collapsed in 2014 amid claims of insolvency and security breaches. At the time hundreds of millions of dollars worth of BTC were lost, and the cryptocurrency’s price crashed. Amid the recovery efforts, about 200,000 BTC were found. Mt Gox’s CEO Mark Karpeles was later on charged with embezzlement and data manipulation, and recently plead not guilty,
The transcript clarifies the Mt Gox trustee sold the cryptocurrencies between December 2017, when bitcoin hit its all-time high of about $19,300, and February 2018, a month in which bitcoin hit a low of $5,900.
Per Kobayashi, the cryptocurrencies were sold at what he believes were fair market prices, and the timing of the sale was picked “following consultation with the court.” Both BTC and BCH were sold separately, and in a way that wouldn’t affect the market, he said. The document reads:
“I sold BTC and BCC, not by an ordinary sale through the BTC/BCC exchange, but in a manner that would avoid affecting the market price, while ensuring the security of the transaction to the extent possible. The method of sale of BTC and BCC was approved by the court as well.”
After finding out Kobayashi had sold such a large amount of cryptocurrency, various crypto community members speculated that was the cause of the bearish market the cryptocurrency has been enduring. Some even analyzed the dates in which both BTC and BCH left Mt Gox’s wallets, in an attempt to match them with market selloffs.
This is the only chart that matters to #bitcoin right now #Crypto
These are the exact times 10 of thousands of #bitcoins were getting dumped by the trustee managing the #MtGox bankruptcy
SOURCE: https://t.co/5iQMRxBVyW#trx #tron #OCoin #altcoin #LitePay #cryptocurrencies pic.twitter.com/FqKQNRjMuV
— Lawrence Digital (@DigitalLawrence) March 8, 2018
In the recently released report, the trustee clarified that the dates do not necessarily mean he sold the cryptocurrencies at that time. The report continues:
“Please refrain from analyzing the correlation between the sale of BTC and BCC by us and the market prices of BTC and BCC based on the assumption that the sale was made at the time the BTC and BCC were transferred from BTC/BCC addresses that I manage, as such assumption is incorrect.”
Will the trustee keep on selling?
The transcript further provides details on whether Kobayashi is going to keep on selling Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. He is notably still in control of over 160,000 BTC and BCH – enough to crash the market if sold irresponsibly.
The trustee claimed that no future sale has yet been determined, and that a sale is only going to happen after consulting the court. Regarding Bitcoin Gold (BTG) and Bitcoin Diamond (BTD), two cryptocurrencies ‘airdropped’ after being created through Bitcoin hard forks, Kobayashi revealed nothing has yet been determined as well.
Reacting to the news, some bitcoiners claimed Kobayashi isn’t being completely honest, while others offered alternative explanations for bitcoin’s bearish trend. Others claimed that it doesn’t really matter how the trustee sold the funds, as they will always end up influencing the market.
