May 28, 2024

Bitcoin fell below $68,000 after wallets belonging to Mt. Gox transferred $9 billion worth of BTC to an unknown address early Asian morning. The transaction is possibly part of a plan to repay creditors by Oct. 31. BTC dropped as low as $67,680, a decline of over 1.5% in the last 24 hours, following the transfer having climbed above $70,000 on Monday. Bitcoin subsequently seemed to shrug off the dip to reclaim $68,000 during the European morning. At the time of writing it is just under $68,500, largely unmoved in the last 24 hours. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) meanwhile is up around 0.3%.

Solana validators are set to get a little more SOL tokens after a governance proposal to give them 100% of priority fees was passed late Monday with 77% in favor. In the previous model, half of the fees in a priority transaction were erased while the other half went to the validators. This created a situation where validators were said to be making “side deals” with transaction submitters to get more SOL, as per proposal creator tao-stones on the Solana governance forum. Giving all the priority fees to the validators would ensure that validators are more focused on keeping the network safe and running smoothly, tao-stones said. SOL has increased by around 1.15% in the last 24 hours, trading at about $167.70, according to CoinDesk Indices data.

Elwood Technologies, the cryptocurrency-focused trade execution and risk management platform backed by billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard, is in talks to sell part of the business, according to people with knowledge of the situation. Elwood is focusing on its existing portfolio management and risk management software-as-a-service business and less on the trading side, one of the people said. Howard’s current reorganization of his portfolio of crypto investments has resulted in changes at Elwood, another person said. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that Howard was looking to sell his stakes in crypto exchange Bitpanda and custody firm Copper to focus on Brevan Howard Digital.

More than 140,000 BTC, worth around $9 billion, were transferred from Mt. Gox wallets to an unknown address in thirteen transactions. Analysts have long considered that payments to creditors of the defunct exchange, which was hacked in 2014 and subsequently closed its doors, could add selling pressure to bitcoin.

Wallet activity shows the movements were done over thirteen transactions. A likely test transaction worth $3 was made on May 20, and another smaller transaction of $160 was done early Tuesday. The remaining transactions ranged from $1.2 million to $2.2 billion worth of bitcoin.

All of Mt.Gox's coins have now effectively been moved to a single bitcoin wallet, Bitinfocharts data shows. This is the first movement of assets from Mt. Gox's cold wallets in over five years and is likely a part of a plan to distribute the assets back to creditors before Oct. 31, 2024.

Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy, said in an X post that he expected most of the transferred bitcoin to be held by creditors, instead of being sold on the open market.