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This Week in Coins: Bitcoin’s Bad Week Sinks Crypto Fleet
Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
After ten years, Bitcoin distributions from the Mt. Gox failure are officially started—and the cryptocurrency market is scared.
Bitcoin Price Friday collapsed starting at $53,898, its lowest price since February, according to CoinGecko. This is a 27% decline from its all-time high of $73,700 in March and the largest pullback from a local high since the asset’s low of $15,500 in November 2022.
While the price of Bitcoin dropped rapidly after the exchange announced the start of distributions, on-chain data suggests that the decline was driven much more by the narrative than the event itself.
“Mt. Gox wallets continue to hold a total of 138,985 BTC ($7.52 billion),” blockchain data platform Arkham Intelligence tweeted on Friday. That means only 2,701 BTC actually left the exchange’s wallets for refunds, and only a fraction of those coins may have been sold by recipients.
Indeed, in announcing the start of the refunds, Mt. Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi asked for patience as they worked to validate and process them all, writing, “We ask eligible rehabilitation creditors to wait a bit.”
However, the bearish narrative surrounding Mt. Gox has proven so overwhelming that even altcoins completely unrelated to the exchange are tumbling.
While BTC recovered slightly to $56,372, a 7% drop in seven days, Ethereum slipped significantly lower and closed the week at $2,989 for a 12% weekly decline. This is despite a counter-bullish narrative for the asset surrounding Ethereum spot ETFs. which could air next weekstating that Mt. Gox and the German Bitcoin are the main concerns in the cryptocurrency industry right now.
The top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, excluding stablecoins, all closed the week in the red.
So what’s holding it back? Solana is apparently down just 4% this week, and is actually up a modest 3% in the past 24 hours. The asset is potentially next in line to get the digital asset ETF treatment, with industry watchers suggesting it could happen after the U.S. federal election, when crypto arch-foe Gary Gensler could lose his position at the SEC.
Speaking of elections, Solana-based political meme coins have been swinging this week on speculation that he might replace President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party nominee.
THE Jeo Boden Meme Coin (BODEN) fell 43% for the week, recovering partially after Biden promised not to drop out of the race. Regardless, Kamala Horris (KAMA), the coin based on his vice president, is still up 326%, as crypto bettors briefly favored Kamala Harris to replace Joe Biden. The president he overthrew his vice president Yesterday.
The enduring appeal of meme coins has also, unfortunately, been exploited by scammers. Earlier this week, the $SMASH token, a meme coin inspired by the UFC star Khamsat Chimayev—reduced to zero shortly after the fighter promoted it on social media, with imprints on the chain indicating an orchestrated pump and dump.
By Ryan-Ozawa.