Some people think the price of Bitcoin is awful today. They should have been here five years ago, when a 26,000 BTC order tanked the market.
Things didn’t improve over the coming months. 2015 would see new Bitcoin price lows, much turbulence, and the beginning of the end of a unified Bitcoin space.
Indeed, 2015 is the only year where Bitcoin finished lower than it started, but the lows that were to come were prefaced by turbulence.
As you may be aware, the market, at this time, was in a state of long-term shock following the implosion of Mt. Gox. Years later, Mark Karpeles would be exonerated of most charges related to his exchange.
The Shadow of Mt. Gox
While fraud took place, Karpeles was probably not the only one to blame. In essence, a Japanese court decided there were severe limits to a CEO’s liability.
Breaches being directly attributable to executives might be a dangerous precedent, after all. A higher degree of malfeasance and standard of proof seems in order.
There remains an ongoing settlement. Bitcoin billionaire Brock Pierce is also spearheading an effort to ensure that Mt. Gox users, not intermediate interests, are given their share of the exchange’s recovered funds.
In the intervening years, the Bitcoin world has produced several forked chains. Some have value, including Bitocin Cash, Bitcoin SV, and Bitcoin Gold.
The Trade Heard Round The World
On this very day five years ago, the market witnessed a block order of 26,000 bitcoins. Today, that would be worth $209 million, so you can decide if the trader made the right decision.
At the time, he realized just under $8 million before taxes. As Coindesk reported:
“On Sunday, bitcoin’s price dropped through the 18-month average purchase price of $337.60, signalling uncertainty to many traders in the market. Then, in the early hours of the Asian morning on Monday, a sell order of 26,000 BTC at $300 that was placed on exchange Bitstamp brought a temporary halt to the volatile price and narrowed bid-ask spreads between the four exchanges in CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).”
He’s a millionaire either way. It’s unclear whether he owned the coins from mining, early days, or from a much higher high. As with many things crypto, the trader was pseudonymous.
At the time, people speculated that the trader was probably making a strategic move to buy back in later. If this was the case, he would have a massive hoard of BTC following that — within a few months the price would sink lower, eventually finding its way under $100.
How things have changed. Today, people say “Bitcoin is dead” if the price touches back 20%. However, to the Bitcoiner, all the market is saying right now is “buy opportunity.”
