Speculation is growing that the trustees for the now-defunct Mt. Gox cryptocurrency exchange are getting set for another significant bitcoin sale.
On April 26, a website that tracks the Mt. Gox cryptocurrency wallets indicated that the trust had shifted a sizable portion of bitcoins and Bitcoin Cash from its wallet, which led many to speculate that Nobuaki Kobayashi, the head attorney for the Mt. Gox trust who’s been dubbed the “Tokyo whale,” is set to unload another lot of the recovered coins.
“Some in the [cryptocurrency] community have been a bit worried about the recent movement of bitcoin out of the Mt. Gox settlement wallets,” wrote Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at etoro.
“Indeed, it appears that Kobayashi has moved about 16,000 BTC out of cold storage, which may indicate that he’s preparing to sell them on the open market,” Greenspan said.
If the trustees were to proceed with a sale, it would be the first sizable transaction since the trust dumped nearly $400 million worth of bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in March.
At current market value, the 16,000 bitcoins BTCUSD, +4.90% and 16,000 Bitcoin Cash are worth a combined $170 million and should the sale happen, onlookers will be scouting for potential price fluctuations.
“If they are smart about it, it won’t have a material impact,” said Martin Garcia, managing director and co-head of sales and trading, at Genesis. “However, it all depends on the market at the time. If it’s going up the market will absorb it easily.”
Garcia added that if done over the counter, it would be possible for the transaction to be executed in a single block.
Read: The cryptocurrency market just suffered a theft worse than Mt. Gox
Given the recent surge in cryptocurrency prices, the timing would make sense. In a March 7 filing, Kobayashi said he attempted to sell the digital currency “as high a price as possible.”
After Thursday’s transfer of bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, the trust has a remaining 146,106 units of both currencies that today is valued at just over $1.5 billion.