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Bitcoin (BTC-USD) slumped below $58K on Thursday for the first time since early May, on concerns of Mt. Gox distributing a large amount of BTC to its creditors. The German government also moved its stash of BTC to crypto exchanges.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency fell 5% in intraday trading, before recovering back to the $58K level. BTC is currently trading at $58.2K as at 1:21 pm ET.
The drop came as wallets of defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox displayed signs of activity for the first time in a month and the German Federal Criminal Police Office moved over $75 million to crypto exchanges, a CoinDesk report stated.
The report further stated Mt. Gox wallets, which have been inactive for a month, showed activity with some test transactions, which could potentially be the firm starting the distribution process to its creditors. It is widely believed the payout will be in crypto tokens.
Media reports suggested the payout includes about $9 billion worth of tokens.
“Among the top reasons for the price drop was the German government moving more than $50 million to crypto exchanges, creating sell speculation in the market,” Lucy Hu, Senior Analyst, Metalpha said.
Earlier in the day, BTC had also dropped below the 200-day moving average.
Crypto-linked stocks were also down: Marathon Digital (MARA) -5.2%, Coinbase Global (COIN) -1.1%, Riot Platforms (RIOT) -1.5%, MicroStrategy (MSTR) -1.4%, CleanSpark (CLSK) -4.6%.