By Adam Clark
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were diving early Friday as the market took fright at the pending refund of assets from the collapsed Mt. Gox crypto exchange.
Bitcoin was down 8.6% over the past 24 hours to $53,927. Mt. Gox transferred 47,228 Bitcoin, worth more than $2.5 billion to a new wallet, according to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence. Mt. Gox’s trustee has said it would begin making repayments to creditors this month.
“Selling pressure will unlikely decrease in the coming days. The German government still has over $2.3 billion worth of Bitcoin, Mt. Gox has more than $8 billion, and the U.S. government has over $12 billion. The direction of Bitcoin in the coming days will be determined by the selling pressure from Mt. Gox users,” said Rachel Lin, CEO of trading platform SynFutures.
Bitcoin hit a record high near $74,000 in mid-March amid a surge of interest from new spot exchange-traded funds but its price has dropped since then.
“If there is enough selling to push the price lower, we might be looking at the $50,000 level soon,” Lin said.
Ether — the second-largest crypto — was down 12% at $2,848 but has risen close to 50% over the past 12 months.
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently approved critical rule changes to allow spot Ether exchange-traded funds to trade. The final approvals for the ETFs should come this summer, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler told senators in a recent budget hearing.
Smaller cryptos, or altcoins, were tumbling, with Solana falling 8.0%, Cardano dropping 17% and Dogecoin losing 17%.
Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com
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