Mt. Gox resumes repayments with $75 million transfer to Bitstamp

The Mt. Gox-linked cryptocurrency wallet has sent over $75 million to crypto exchange Bitstamp after weeks of no activity.

Flagged by data analytics platform Arkham Intelligence, Mt. Gox, the now-defunct crypto exchange, sent 1264.69 Bitcoin (BTC) to a wallet identified by “3HXo1…wsuXH,” which was confirmed to be linked to the Luxembourg-based Bistamp exchange.

Majority of funds moved to unknown wallet

The transfer was preceded by a massive move between Mt. Gox cold wallets, which is typically a pattern that has been noticed before every creditor repayment. 

On Aug. 20, 12,000 Bitcoin (roughly $709.4 million) was transferred at around 11:39 pm UTC to an unknown empty wallet, where it currently sits. Another transfer of 1,265 BTC, worth $74.8 million, was sent to the Mt. Gox cold wallet, which initiated the transfer to BitStamp.

While only a small portion of the total funds moved on Aug. 20 has been distributed, the remainder is still in control of the Mt. Gox Trustee. This was the first major move in over three weeks.

For Bitstamp, this marks the third major transaction directed towards it. The exchange received the first payment of 1979 BTC on July 24, followed by a 382 BTC transfer just hours later. To date, Bitstamp has received approximately $230 million worth of BTC for reimbursing Mt. Gox victims.

Bitstamp vowed to start its disbursements promptly within a week. However, at the time, the firm said a separate distribution plan had been put in place for residents in the United Kingdom. The recent transfer could likely be in this regard.

Previous repayments

The last major move from Mt. Gox was made on July 30, with 47,229 BTC being distributed across three wallets. Approximately 33,105 BTC was sent to the wallet later confirmed to be controlled by BitGo, another one of Mt.Gox creditors.

On the same day, another BitGo wallet received 858.64 BTC valued at roughly $56.83M. BitGo hasn’t made any announcement regarding its distribution timeline but moved $2 billion worth of BTC on August 12 to an unknown wallet.

Kraken, on the other hand, confirmed receiving funds on July 16 and settled customer payments within 15 days of receipt.

At the time of publication, Mt Gox held 34,164 BTC valued at roughly $2.08 billion. According to data from analytics platform CryptoQuant, before the Bitstamp transfer, the crypto exchange had already distributed at least 68% of the initial $9 billion it started with.

Around 20,000 users are expected to be made whole by the Japanese crypto exchange. Last month, an X user shared an email supposedly originating from Mtx Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, which suggested that 17,000 creditors had already been paid as of July 31.

While the initial repayment transactions from Mt. Gox induced fear within the market, that trend has waned over time. Following today’s move, Bitcoin continued to trade above the $58,000 mark and was up 1% over the past 24 hours at the time of writing.

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