Mt. Gox, a prominent crypto exchange that was hacked in 2014, has once again delayed its planned repayments to creditors. The trustees for the company announced that the repayment deadline, originally set for October 31, 2023, has been pushed back to October 31, 2024.
Mt. Gox’s creditors have been eagerly awaiting relief for a decade, as the exchange lost 850,000 bitcoin (BTC) in the hack, which was worth nearly $23 billion at current prices. Fortunately, the exchange managed to recover around 20% of the stolen tokens.
The decision to postpone the repayments raises concerns about the impact on the Bitcoin market. Some analysts, including those at UBS, had warned that the repayments could cause an increase in BTC’s active supply, leading to price weakness. The assumption was that creditors, who had been waiting for almost ten years, would quickly liquidate their holdings, thereby adding to the supply.
Additionally, the crypto market’s depth has significantly deteriorated since the collapse of FTX, exacerbating the potential negative impact of large sell orders on prices.
Interestingly, despite the delay in Mt. Gox’s repayments, Bitcoin struggled to gather upside traction. This may be due to the lingering uncertainty surrounding the future supply of the cryptocurrency.
Amidst all this, the native token of non-fungible tokens platform ImmutableX, IMX, experienced a significant surge. Led by South Korean traders, IMX rose 35% to 74 cents during Asian trading hours. In contrast, major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, and BNB traded slightly lower, ranging from 0.5% to 1%.
The rally in the price of IMX was accompanied by a notable increase in the 24-hour global trading volume, which reached $556 million, representing a 22% increase. The IMX-Korean won pair listed on South Korea’s Upbit exchange accounted for nearly 20% of the global activity, followed by Binance’s IMX-tether pair, which contributed 7% to the total volume, according to data from Coingecko.
While Mt. Gox’s delay in repayments may have caused concerns in the Bitcoin market, the surge in IMX suggests renewed bullish sentiment among traders, potentially indicating a positive outlook for the broader crypto industry. It remains to be seen how these developments will shape the market in the coming months.
