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Bitcoin Slides to $54K After Mt Gox Begins Distributions By Investing.com
Investing.com — fell sharply in early Asian trading on Monday, reversing a modest recovery seen over the weekend and hitting a four-month low on concerns over a flood of tokens circulating from defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt Gox.
It fell 5.8% over the past 24 hours to $54,601.7 as of 9:28 PM ET (01:28 GMT), approaching its weakest level since late February. The token also fell below a key support of $55,000.
Bitcoin has suffered sharp losses over the past two weeks, amid concerns over token distributions by Mt Gox. Trustees at the exchange said last week that they had begun distributing tokens stolen in a 2014 hack to creditors through a number of exchanges, though they did not specify how many tokens would be returned.
Earlier this year, wallets associated with the exchange mobilized approximately $9 billion in Bitcoin.
Mt Gox has been a major point of contention for cryptocurrency markets, as traders speculated that given the massive rise in Bitcoin’s price over the past decade, recipients of the token would likely want to sell it on the open market, increasing its supply.
Fears of such a scenario have prompted widespread dumping of the token in the market, with several Bitcoin “whale” wallets going online and mobilizing their holdings to sell.
Bitcoin’s sell-off spilled over into the broader cryptocurrency market, with the world’s No. 2 token falling 7.3% to a two-month low.