​Arkham denies transactions between Mt.Gox and the US government

What’s new? Arkham Intelligence, an analytics company, has said that all of the transaction alerts related to the bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox and the US government were a bug in the alerts system and had nothing to do with the actual participants. Arkham’s representatives also said that their alerts could not have affected bitcoin’s rate, as its sharp decline from $29 770 to $27 235 occurred before the incorrect information was published.

We have conducted an investigation of the DB Alert situation, and determined that the Arkham alerts were sent accurately in this case.DB set two alerts on all Bitcoin transactions above $10k USD, with no counterparties set, then named the alerts “Mt Gox” and “US Gov”. When we… pic.twitter.com/8OITiygNhL

— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) April 26, 2023

Details on the situation. On the night of April 26-27, Arkham’s alert system identified two transactions over $10 000 without specifying counterparties and then called the alerts “Mt Gox” and “US Gov.” After detecting and correcting the bug, the system issued multiple alerts based on those parameters.

However, Arkham claims that neither the alerts nor the corresponding Twitter postings based on those data could have caused the first cryptocurrency to plummet to $27 235 between 19:17 and 20:01 UTC, as they were sent at 20:07 UTC and 20:08 UTC, respectively.

As of April 27, 07:20 UTC, the BTC rate on Binance rose to $28 836, a daily increase of 1,7%.

Mt Gox situation. Bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox declared bankruptcy in 2014 after a hacker stole 850 000 BTC. In 2020, a plan was presented to recoup the funds from the remaining 137 891 BTC on the Mt.Gox wallet.

There have been repeated concerns in the community that starting the payout would put a lot of pressure on the bitcoin exchange rate. And on April 7, 2023, Mt.Gox trustee Nobuyuki Kobayashi announced that the deadline for filing reimbursement requests had expired, opening the door for reimbursement payments to begin. Base, interim, and early lump-sum repayments can be made through October 31.

At the same time, UBS financial holding strategists doubt that refunds to Mt.Gox clients will put much pressure on the BTC exchange rate, as early supporters of cryptocurrencies will prefer to keep the asset rather than bring it to the market for sale.