Common sense would indicate that when the mtgox coins are distributed we would see a very large selloff. This is just the reality.
Is it? Common sense would suggest that if the trust offer you BTC or fiat, then you would accept fiat. Not accept Bitcoin in order to sell it for fiat yourself. Am I missing something here? Unless those receiving fiat would receive it after those who accept Bitcoin, then it seems like a much better deal to have the trust sell your Bitcoin for you, rather than sell it later via spot on a potentially depressed market.
While generally I'd agree that an increase in "available" or "active" circulating supply provides selling pressure, even though OTC will absorb them through the trust selling, I think this can be another case of "sell the rumour buy the news", just like the "bearish" CPI numbers announced last week. In summary, price could have already factored in the MtGox coins, just like the CPI announcement.
I've heard too many people claim "price will fall" if inflation numbers are bad, if MtGox coins are released, etc, etc. So far, they are sounding like a bunch of idiots to be honest as price proves otherwise.
Many people have had their coins trapped for a long time and will need to sell them immediately because life happens.
These people are unlikely to ever see their coins again, that's the irony though, they will just see the fiat compensation from the trust.
The thing is that the big investors know this is coming, and they may in fact have been causing this crash in order to scoop those coins for cheap.
This I agree with. I think part of the selling pressure was partly due to the anticipation of MtGox coins hitting OTC. Now they scoop for them up for cheap (maybe they already are for all we know).
Good investors always tend to be a step ahead, so as the Bitcoin market has matured we've seen more frontrunning
This is ironically precisely my point. The dumb investors are going to waiting for a huge drop after the coins are distributed (completely unaware of the exact manner in which the coins will be dealt with), while the smart investors will have either positioned themselves according or already booked in their orders OTC. The smartest investors will likely be front-running the buying via OTC, given how cheap BTC currently is.
If price was around $30K support and looking weak, I think this would be a different story, and we'd likely see price fall to $20K where it is now. Likewise if it was around $40K we'd see a drop to $30K support or lower. But currently, price is already very cheap (at a 4-year average), many long-term investors aren't worried about buying at $10K or $20K, they'll simply want to already dip their toes in the water as it were.
In the long-term, better to buy at $20K then double down at $10K, or otherwise double down at $40K even, then simply waiting for a price that may never happen...