The trustee of Mt. Gox – a once major and now defunct Bitcoin exchange – who reportedly sold over $400 mln in Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) around the new year – has stated that he does not believe the sales affected market prices of BTC or BCH, according to a report released today, March 17.
Today’s report is a transcript of a Q&A at the 10th Mt. Gox creditors’ meeting, which took place on March 7, 2018, about the selling of BTC and BCH by defunct exchange’s trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi.
The Japan-based Mt.Gox crypto exchange had been the largest in the world until a February 2014 hack led to the loss of around 850,000 BTC. The current sales of BTC and BCH by Kobayashi are part of an attempt to refund users who lost money in the hack.
An earlier report released March 7 to the Tokyo District Court had said that the BTC/BCH sales took place between the creditors’ meeting in September 2017 and the one on March 7. However the report released today clarifies that the sales took place between December 2017 and January 2018.
The March 7 report, which detailed the amount of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash sold by Kobayashi over this reported two month period, led many to believe that the large sell off is what led to the market crash after the new year.
Kobayashi noted that after consulting with cryptocurrency experts, he “sold BTC and BCC [BCH], not by an ordinary sale through the BTC/BCC [BCH] exchange, but in a manner that would avoid affecting the market price, while ensuring the security of the transaction to the extent possible.”
Kobayashi added a clarification about the transfers of BTC and BCH to different addresses, underlining that he did not necessarily sell BTC and BCH at the same time as these transfers:
“Please refrain from analyzing the correlation between the sale of BTC and BCC [BCH] by us and the market prices of BTC and BCC [BCH] based on the assumption that the sale was made at the time the BTC and BCC [BCH] were transferred from BTC/BCC [BCH] addresses that I manage, as such assumption is incorrect.”
It is possible that today’s report was released as a way for Kobayashi to refute accusations of his responsibility in the crash, as many in the crypto community had analyzed the times of the transfers of BTC and BCH in an attempt to correlate them with drops in market price during the same period. However, Cointelegraph did find that a comparison of the transfers and the price showed that there was a negative correlation in the short run, daily.
Kobayashi reported that he sold the two coins at what he believes to be a fair market price, and picked the timing of sale “following consultation with the court.” Kobayashi also noted that he sold BTC and BCH separately, and added that there is no determination yet on future sales of the remaining BTC and BCH.
A recent Reddit post summarizing Kobayashi’s position from today report’s has garnered conflicting opinions. Reddit user riveriafrank commented on the post that “just because you transact on a dark pool doesnt [sic] mean the price isnt [sic] affected.” Another Reddit user, samonx, the author of the post, added an alternative explanation for the market dip in the past couple months that does not include Kobayashi:
“Large holders sold at a high price driving the price down on the back of FUD about the ‘Tokyo Whale’ about to dump 160k more Bitcoin because he’s been recklessly selling using market orders. It all turned out to be complete b******* as I suspected. Someone else was dumping and manipulating in this way. Once you start an avalanche there’s no way to control it.”
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