Talking about recent Bitcoin price history, coin’s price graph was on an upward spiral up until mid-December when the value hit the high of $19,343. But since then BTC price has come crashing down to $10,000. What happened in a matter of few weeks that almost 100% price drop was observed?
Analysts suggest that the fall that price of Bitcoin experienced can be attributed to a huge sell-off of around 40,000 Bitcoin by Nobuaki Kobayashi, a Mt. Gox trustee.
Mt. Gox was an ill-fated Japan-based cryptocurrency exchange that was responsible for more than 70% of all Bitcoin transactions globally in 2014. However, lax cyber security and incompetency on company’s leading figures resulted in an unprecedented massive theft of around 850,000 Bitcoin which ultimately forced the company down to close its operations and file for bankruptcy.
According to Mt. Gox financials, Nobuaki Kobayashi, who used to be a trustee and lawyer of the company dumped more than 35,000 Bitcoin and 34,000 Bitcoin cash between the months of September 2017 and January 2018. The amount dumped into the cryptocurrency market has BTC to USD value of around $400 million.
Tons of analysts and experts in cryptocurrency sphere have heavily criticized Kobayashi for recent influx of Bitcoin that introduced volatility in an already unpredictable market. Nobuaki Kobayashi still has around 166,000 Bitcoin, valued at about $1.5 billion, in his possession.
At a time when Bitcoin price has already been forced into a bearish trend owing to regulatory restrictions in many countries, hacking attempts on cryptocurrency exchanges and cyber frauds, this massive sell-off of thousands of Bitcoin by a former Mt. Gox trustee has proved to be a contributing factor behind BTC value‘s slump during second half of December 2017 and later months.
When you are selling a large volume of any cryptocurrency, you increase the supply of the commodity in the market and accept lower bids driving the currency’s price down at a rapid pace. This also makes the cryptocurrency market prone to snowball effect where everyone, in the fear of losing value, starts to sell their share of Bitcoin pushing market towards a potential crash.
Now that the news is in the open and the court date being 6 months away, Nobuaki Kobayashi has more eyes on him than ever which makes it difficult for him to sell-off a large volume of Bitcoin without getting noticed. This bodes well for current Bitcoin price.
