By 
A massive Bitcoin sell-off by the Mt. Gox trustee has ensued panic in the market. As a result Bitcoin price dropped to below $9,000, after reaching $11,000 merely 48 hours ago. At the time of writing, Bitcoin has slightly recovered and is trading at $9,050, representing a market cap of $153 billion.
According to the official document released by the Mt. Gox trustee, a total of $404 million worth of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash have been sold over the past few months, at a price determined by the trustee, which is significantly lower than the current market value.
The document read:
“As a result of the consultation with the court, I considered it necessary and reasonable to sell a certain amount of BTC and BCC at this point and secure a certain amount of money for distribution resources, and thus, I sold the amount of BTC and BCC above. I made efforts to sell BTC and BCC at as high a price as possible in light of the market price of BTC and BCC at the timing of sale. I plan to consult with the court and determine further sale of BTC and BCC,”
In the next few months, the trustee intends to liquidate the remaining assets, which are approximately 166,344 Bitcoins, amounting to $1.7 billion at the current market rate.
Although, it is important to keep in mind this sell-off is not the only reason behind this crash. This week, SEC’s announcement added fuel to the fire. It said that cryptocurrency exchanges that have listed initial coin offerings (ICOs) or tokens on their platforms are required to register with the agency in order to continue providing support for ERC20 tokens.
Andreas Antonopoulos, a well-respected cryptocurrency and security expert, emphasized that the SEC and other federal agencies tightening regulations for ICOs was expected. He said:
“The recent SEC & FinCEN statements are not unexpected. I have been warning people about the potential risks (technical, financial, and legal) of engaging with ICOs for years.”
On the other hand, the Japanese government recently penalized four cryptocurrency exchanges and revoked the licenses of two trading platforms for poor security and failing to meet Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) policies.
This factor could also have played a part in the crash given that Japan still remains as the largest Bitcoin exchange market with over 51% of the market share.
Top Stories from the Crypto World
1. All irregular trades reversed, hackers lost coins: Binance CEO
As mentioned in our yesterday’s newsletter, hackers got hold of Binance for a shart period of time. As a result of which Viacoin price pumped a bit too much. Today, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has claimed all fraudulent trades that occurred on Wednesday have been reversed. Here’s the full story:
On March 7th between 14:58 and 14:59 “abnormal trading activity” was detected on one of the hugely popular Binance exchange’s marketplaces. The automatic risk management system was triggered, and all withdrawals were immediately halted.
The attackers had managed to phish multiple Binance account details using a similar URL. Waiting for the right moment, the hackers commanded the hacked accounts to buy ViaCoin at extremely high prices, skyrocketing the price by some several hundred percent.
Immediately after the trades had been completed, the hackers tried to withdraw the large pool of Bitcoin they had gathered but were unable to due to the fast-acting alarm system.
Chanpeng Zhou, CEO of the platform, took to Twitter to demonstrate the phishing URL from a users history. All irregular trades were reversed, meaning that no users of the platform lost any form of funds. What’s even more interesting is that the failed attempt actually caused the hackers to lose funds. According to Zhao, the confiscated funds will be donated to Binance Charity.
2. Winklevoss twins hint at Gemini support for Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash
This prediction seems to have at least partially shown some validity with statements coming out of the CBOE Risk Management Conference on Friday which featured a fireside chat with Gemini founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.
In the fireside chat, Cameron and Tyler said that the CBOE is interested in expanding to more cryptocurrencies. The only reason they haven’t yet is actually Gemini’s lack of support for coins other than Bitcoin and Ethereum.
This is significant because it means that CBOE fully intends to issue futures on other cryptocurrencies. The hold-up, it would appear, is Gemini itself. At the moment Gemini only offers Bitcoin and Ethereum. This is a problem since CBOE has an exclusive deal with Gemini that it will only use Gemini to calculate it’s futures.
Therefore, in order for the CBOE to add more coins, Gemini also needs to add more coins. This also means that Ethereum, which is already offered on Gemini, is likely to come to the CBOE future markets very soon.
3. Bitcoin more likely to hit $100 Than $100,000 in a decade, says Ex-IMF Economist
Bitcoin dies once again. Harvard professor and renowned economist Kenneth Rogoff, who’s in the past argued for a reduction in the amount of physical cash, has recently stated that bitcoin is likelier to hit $100 than $100,000 a decade from now.
Speaking at CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) argued that if the cryptocurrency stops being used to launder money and evade taxes, its “actual uses as a transaction vehicle are very small.”
He said, “I think bitcoin will be worth a tiny fraction of what it is now if we’re headed out 10 years from now … I would see $100 as being a lot more likely than $100,000 ten years from now.”