After 10 years of waiting, creditors of defunct bitcoin (BTC) exchange Mt Gox are finally receiving their rightful repayments.
It’s a much-deserved moment for these out-of-pocket creditors who have had some $8 billion of bitcoin tied up in the Mt Gox bankruptcy estate.
But the occasion has also raised the spectre of a large-scale bitcoin sell-off if these creditors seek to redeem their crypto for cash.
Early indications suggest these anxieties might not be warranted.
Major crypto exchanges Kraken and Bitstamp, which have been chosen to assist with creditor distributions, have both confirmed that repayments are steadily underway.
Yet bitcoin (BTC) has traded upward over the past week, having surged 5.3% against the US dollar.
At the time of writing, the BTC/USD pair was swapping for $67,346.
Ether ETFs garner mixed results
Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency, has been less bullish this week, falling more than 5% against the US dollar.
This comes despite the launch of the highly anticipated spot-ether exchange-traded funds.
The US regulators gave the green light to ether ETF prospectuses filed by such as BlackRock and VanEck this week, but early indications suggest demand has been mixed.
Bloomberg’s ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted $1 billion in total ether ETH trading volumes on the first day of trading (Tuesday, July 23).
This is less than a quarter of the bitcoin ETF trading volumes when they debuted in January.
Balchunas said first-day volumes were “more than I guessed”, but ether’s spot price reaction suggests a divided opinion in the market.
At the time of writing, the ETH/USD pair was swapping for $3,215.