And it was this guy – Tokyo whale and Mt.Gox bankrutpcy trustee who sold almost $400 million worth of BTC, some of it at the very bottom on Feb 6th. He crashed the market by 75% by selling the bitcoins in couple of rounds.
The MT Gox trustee has sold half a billion worth of bitcoin and bitcoin cash between December 2017 and February 2018 it was revealed today.
The Bitcoin Trader sold the first batch of 6k bitcoin on December 22nd, sending the price from nearly $16,000 to a brief low of $10,800. Then he waited for the market to recover and sold another batch of 8k bitcoins on January 17th. Which again produced the same effect – crashed the bitcoin price.
But he is not done yet – he does another sell on January 31st, this time it was around 6k bitcoins. But vast majority of bitcoins was sold on February 6th which implies that he actually tried to crash the market by selling at the bottom.
And guess what – the market absorbed it and jumped back up to $10k.
But what is worrisome is that this same guy has another 180k BTC up his sleeves, that he is looking to sell in the upcoming period and repay the creditors and users who lost their bitcoin in Mt.Gox hack.
This case makes it the fourth time for Mt.Gox to directly or indirectly crash the bitcoin price. First time was hack in 2011, then a DDos in 2013, 2014 is when they went bankrupt and now this sell off.
And as we have said, this trustee has another 180k bitcoins that will probably cause similar crash – that would be 5th or even 6th if he does it in separate batches.
Nevertheless, bitcoin has showed admirable resilience in spite of all the sell offs and this actually indicates that once Mt.Gox saga is over, bitcoin price should skyrocket and reach new highs as many have predicted.
Make sure to check out our guides on other cryptocurrency exchanges:
- Full guide of Binance here
- Read how to buy coins on Coinbase in our review of Coinbase exchange.
- Another popular exchange is Cex.io – learn more about it in this guide on Cex.io.
- Check our guide on the best automated trading software.
You can also check comparisons we made between some of the most known exchanges:
- Coinbase or Bitstamp
- Changelly versus Shapeshift
- Popular exchanges compared: Coinbase vs Coinmama
- Head to head: Xapo vs Coinbase
- Who is better:GDAX vs Gemini
- Changelly vs Coinbase
- Coinbase vs Bittrex
- Poloniex vs GDAX
- Exchange duel: Poloniex vs Bittrex
- Comparison Coinbase vs Kraken
- Difference between GDAX and Coinbase
- Gemini vs Coinbase
- Exchanges comparison: Binance vs Kucoin
- Binance vs Bittrex
The problem here isn’t so much what Whales do (because you can’t change human nature), its that it is too easy for them to exist in large numbers in the first place. While ICOs are great in having brought investing to the everyman (on an average salary), a lot of crypto start-ups have been massively funded by big players before an ICO even starts, and at further discounted prices compared to ICO buyers. Is this start-ups being ethically challenged? Or just pragmatic human nature being itself? Regardless of that, the market impacts of their decisions are disproportionate to their weight of expertise (they are only one person amongst thousands in the market). It makes me appreciate the ethical value of one man – one vote much more so than before. Market pragmatism is brutal, and it cannot compete with managed social systems like democracy for ethical value.
Silly headline, silly observation. Anyone who understands markets would know that when a heavy seller STOPS selling the market rallies. So the more accurate observation would be that a heavy seller stopped selling at $6000, sparking off a rally.
Your article is sheer bull, you have no evidence to support it except your own opinion and some dates.
As trustee for the bankruptcy, he would get into serious trouble if he did not get the best price for the BTC as that is his job.
The BTC market is so fragile that anything in the wrong direction, even a sneeze could be attributable to the slide. That fact is that there are bigger whales than him manipulating the market and with good effect.
It is nothing to do with BTC’s resilience but to do with making money and profits, anyone who thinks the big boys care about the technology is deluding themselves.
I’m so glad I never got tied up with Mt. Gox. Feel bad for all of the normal every day people that got fucked over so hard.
Why don’t the institutions looking for entry into cryptocurrency market approach this man/company and buy it from him OTC instead of crashing the market?