Bitcoin and Ether Plunge Amid Mt. Gox Distributions

Crypto markets are trading sharply lower on Thursday morning after the trustee of the collapsed Mt. Gox exchange moved $2.8 billion worth of Bitcoin to new wallets.

Ethereum (ETH) plummeted by 8.5% to $3,160, while Bitcoin (BTC) slid by 3.5% to $64,000, according to CoinGecko. Solana (SOL) and Polkadot (DOT) dipped 4%.

According to Arkham Intelligence data, Mt.Gox transferred a total of 42,600 Bitcoin, approximately valued at $2.8 billion on Wednesday. The largest transfer, worth $2.1 billion, went to a new wallet, now labelled ‘Mt. Gox Cold Wallet (12Gws).’

Bitcoin worth $155 million was also routed to the centralized crypto exchange Bitstamp, one of the five firms helping to redistribute Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) to Mt. Gox creditors.

“We’re pleased to announce that we’ve received the Mt. Gox assets. We’re working diligently to distribute them to our Bitstamp customers who are Mt. Gox creditors. Please allow up to one week for security checks,” Bitstamp tweeted. “We’ll inform you when the transfer is finalized. Thank you for your patience and trust.

Some users also reported receiving their Mt. Gox Bitcoin from Kraken. The exchange still possesses $5.9 billion worth of Bitcoin.

In the past 24 hours, 73,379 traders have been liquidated, with total liquidations amounting to $291 million, according to CoinGlass data. The largest single liquidation order occurred on Binance, with $11.8 million worth of Bitcoin liquidated.

Longs refer to traders betting that the price of an asset will rise, whereas shorts are traders betting that the price will fall.

Bitcoin liquidations totaled $83 million, with $71 million in long positions and $12 million in short positions liquidated. Similarly, Ether liquidations amounted to $101 million, consisting of $97 million in long positions and $4 million in short positions.

ETH ETF Outflows

Data from Farside Investors indicates that spot Ethereum ETFs recorded negative inflows on their second day of trading, following $107 million in net inflows on the first day.

BlackRock’s Ethereum ETF recorded $17 million in inflows, while Fidelity’s FETH was the top contender with $74 million. Bitwise’s ETHW logged $29 million, and VanEck’s ETHV recorded $19.8 million in inflows.

However, investors pulled out $326.9 million from the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which now holds $8.38 billion in assets under management (AUM). Overall, Wednesday recorded net outflows of $45 million.

The crypto selloff comes after U.S. stock markets suffered their worst single-day decline since 2022 on Wednesday.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged 3.6%, while the S&P 500 dropped 2.3%. Tesla was among the worst performers, with a 12% drop, as technology giants Nvidia, Meta and Alphabet fell 5% or more.