The wallet, linked to the Mt. Gox BTC theft, may be looking to sell some of the Bitcoins on unofficial OTCs.
A digital wallet, which could belong to the defunct BTC-e exchange and linked to the 2014 Mt. Gox hack, has moved 10.000 BTC, worth about $165 million, to several private addresses.
This Bitcoin address, which had been inactive for seven years, has made several movements. In one of the movements, 3.500 Bitcoin have been transferred to an address, which then moved 300 BTC to another. These, in turn, were divided into small shipments that were received at several personal addresses.
The movements have been discovered by Chainalysis and Cryptoquant, an on-chain analytics company. In this regard, the data indicates that most of the 10.000 BTC (about 9.950) have been sent to personal addresses, while the rest have passed through several intermediaries until reaching exchanges.
Analytics firms have also explained that this pattern of movements is difficult to explain. On the one hand, it could be that the owner of the original wallet is sending small amounts of money. BTC amounts to other wallets of his own. On the other hand, it is also possible that he is trying to sell the Bitcoin, sending small amounts to personal wallets and selling them through unofficial OTC brokers.
What is BTC-e?
BTC-e was a cryptocurrency exchange that, for a time, maintained the 70% of all Bitcoin transactionsIn 2014, the exchange was hacked and thousands of BTC were stolen, so the exchange had to file for bankruptcy.
The exchange was located in the United States and its website was shut down by the FBI in 2017 as it was suspected of having laundered funds, including thousands of cryptocurrencies stolen from Mt. Gox.
Although the founders of Mt. Gox have always remained anonymous, it is rumored that one of the founders was Alexander Vinnik. According to security firm WizSecurity, Vinnik could be involved in the directly linked to the Mt. Gox attack and that he could have used the funds stolen in the hack to found his own exchange, although this has never been proven.
What was Mt. Gox?
Mt. Gox It was the first Bitcoin exchange, created from a P2P market for playing cards. Magic The Gathering.
Exchange suffered a theft of 744.408 BTC and had to shut down all operations in 2014. Since then, much of the users’ funds have been blocked.
Recently, Mt. Gox's legal representatives have announced that the cryptos locked in the exchange will be released soon. At the same time, for Don't flood the market and cause the price of Bitcoin to collapse, they have explained that users will be able to choose the way in which they will be reimbursed.
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