Bitcoin could face additional selling pressure into September as both Mt. Gox and the United States government potentially introduce nearly $15 billion worth of Bitcoin into the market.
Currently, the U.S. government holds over 203,000 Bitcoin valued at approximately $12.1 billion. Meanwhile, the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox is poised to distribute another 46,000 Bitcoin, valued at over $2.7 billion.
Despite the large sums involved, a recent report by crypto analytics provider Kaiko, dated Aug. 29, suggests that the market might absorb these distributions without significant disruption. The report states:
“Kraken has handled BTC ETF flows with just a minor increase in slippage at the US market close. Its liquidity profile suggests that any additional selling pressure from the Mt. Gox repayments is unlikely to cause structural issues that could affect the broader market.”
Mt. Gox creditors have been awaiting the release of over $9.4 billion worth of Bitcoin for the past decade, a stash that has appreciated over 8,500% in value. This substantial increase suggests that many investors might be inclined to sell.
Despite the potential for significant market movements, historical data indicates that Mt. Gox creditors have not aggressively sold off their Bitcoin. After nearly $4 billion worth of BTC was distributed at the end of July, accounting for 41.5% of the payments owed to users, most creditors opted to retain their Bitcoin. A July 29 report from Glassnode highlighted this trend:
“Creditors opted to receive BTC, rather than fiat, which was new in Japanese bankruptcy law […] As such, it is relatively likely that only a subset of these distributed coins will be truly sold onto the market.”
Furthermore, the spot cumulative volume delta (CVD), which measures the net difference between spot buying and selling trade volume on centralized exchanges, did not show a significant increase on Kraken following the Mt. Gox BTC distribution. This suggests that the actual selling impact of these distributions may be less than anticipated.
