Well somethings not quite right here, as we're talking about 140K bitcoin that's worth $3.4 billion as of typing, not $17 billion. Unless $10b+ has already been claimed as part of the
earlier payout scheme?
(I just realised that the amount credited is lower than the amount claimed, hence $18.4 billion in claims with 140K Bitcoin credited)MtGox only got 140k btc, Others they lost during the hack. Thats why they are only distributing 140k
Thanks for clarifying that, I thought you were implying $17 billion bitcoin was being distributed, but clearly not.
Its not about those creditors will sell their 140k coins at once, there were few strategies, if they opted to get paid in cash then the escrow will have to sell the coins at once and that would be the problem. If they opted to get paid in the BTC too, then again, Whales will take benefit of the situation and they will try to dump the btc price to buy back at lower price.
As I referenced, Fortress were offering to buy up these coins "in advance" for 80% of value, in March 2021 when price was around $60K, as also referenced
in the report:
At the same time, it needs to be kept in mind that especially private equity firm Fortress but also other companies bought up Mt. Gox creditor claims at a discount to the nominal value.
This brings me back to your question: will the creditors hodl? I think they would have already jumped at the opportunity over a year ago to sell to Fortress and others. Why would they be selling now, if they didn't take the opportunity to sell when they could over a year ago at much better prices? Sure there will be a few who regret not selling that now will... but otherwise I generally agree with the outlook:
The same argument of hedging holds true for large creditors: If they intended to sell, they likely have already done so at least in part – either to one of the companies buying up such claims or through the opening of a short position. Hence, it can be speculated that the release of the Mt. Gox coins might not have such a significant impact on the market as it might seem at first glance
Returning back to my original questions, how much of this BTC has already been sold... this seems unclear still. What is clearer is that the distribution will have much less effect on the spot market as I speculated sometime ago, given there are equity firms offering to buy up these coins for a discount. I imagine now with lower prices the discount won't be as low as 20%, but remain attractive compared to selling on spot. Of course the tiny percentage that hold 20-50% of the claims will no doubt have the opportunity to manipulate the market, but this has always been the case with whales who have considerable supply, so nothing new.
Either way thanks for sharing that report, it did help to shed some more light on the situation that I was previously unaware of, such as the selling that been taking place behind closed doors for over a year now.