Topline
The price of Bitcoin dropped to its lowest level since February early on Friday, amid a wider selloff in the cryptocurrency market as the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox—which collapsed in 2014—began the process of paying back its creditors.
Price of Bitcoin briefly dropped below $54,000 on Friday.
Key Facts
The price of the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency briefly dropped below $54,000 in early morning trading on Friday, before settling just slightly above that mark.
In the previous 24 hours, the price of Bitcoin has fallen more than 6.7%, and compared to last week, its value has tanked more than 11%.
Other cryptocurrencies were hit by the sell-off as well, with the price of Ether dropping below $2,900—down more than 9%— while other tokens such as Binance’s BNB and Solana were down 11% and 5.8% respectively.
Aside from Bitcoin, Mt. Gox will also use Bitcoin Cash to repay its creditors, whose value has sunk nearly 25% in the past week.
Key Background
On Friday, the administrators of the defunct Mt. Gox, which went bankrupt in 2014, said they have started the process of repaying their creditors in accordance with their “Rehabilitation Plan.” The repayments will be staggered and the creditors will receive around 140,000 Bitcoins (worth $7.6 billion) and 143,000 Bitcoin Cash (BCH) tokens ($42.5 million) in total. On Thursday evening, Mt. Gox moved around 47,228 Bitcoins ($2.71 billion) from cold storage into a new wallet. The size of the payout has triggered concerns that creditors may move to liquidate a portion of the returned assets—thereby driving down the prices. Before it went bust, Mt. Gox was the largest crypto currency exchange in the world and in 2013 accounted for 70% of all global Bitcoin transactions.
Big Number
23.56%. That is how much the price of bitcoin has fallen in the past 30 days. The slump comes after the token reached an all-time high of above $73,700 in March largely driven by the regulatory approval and launch of spot bitcoin exchange traded funds.
Further Reading
Bitcoin Price Drops Below $58,000 For The First Time In 2 Months (Forbes)