Mt Gox Trustee Wanted for Laziness and Crashing Bitcoin Crypto Market?
Such trustee actions also help make a strong case for blockchain and smart contracts.
Mt Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi published a Tokyo District Court document announcing the estate associated with Mt Gox had sold thousands of Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) for several months- ever since the cryptocurrency market peaked in December of 2017.
Mt.Gox estate Bitcoin withdraw records from the blockchain
Nobuaki Kobayashi said “With the permission of the court, I sold a certain amount of BTC and BCH that belonged to the bankruptcy estate.” The quantities sold and the amount paid into the bankrupt trustee’s account was 35,841 BTC (value almost 358 million USD) and 34,008 BCH (value 44.5 million USD) for a total of 402.5 million USD.
Nobuaki Kobayashi continued “I made efforts to sell BTC and BCH at a high a price as possible in light of the market price of BTC and BCH at the timing of sale.”
“I plan to consult with the court and determine further sale of BTC and BCH.”.
In short his reasoning was to assist in paying off creditors among other court costs (including paying the fees of other lawyers).
A Class Action Lawsuit filed in the USA by Joseph Lack for the loss of more than $400 million USD from users on the Mt. Gox Bitcoin Exchange through either gross negligence or outright theft, hints that continued market sales of BTC and BCH at the previous magnitude may NOT be necessary or required.
Even if more funds are required by Mt Gox trustees such as Nobuaki Kobayashi (or others), they have other options rather than simply dumping a massive amount of coins on a single exchange and selling at the current market price (driving down prices, possibly fueling a crash). Other tools for the job include: open, public auctions as well as OTC trades for example.
Nobuaki Kobayashi is arguably at least partly responsible for the drop in the price of Bitcoin from 16,000 to 10,000 in a single day, and some would say he at least contributed to the complete price move of BTC from almost 20,000 (market top) to the 6,000 (market bottom).
Ghost of Mt.Gox still haunts the Bitcoin Market
For those wishing to express their thoughts or offer suggestions for future BTC & BCH bankruptcy estate sales can contact: MTGOX Co., Ltd. Office of Bankruptcy Trustee Suite 202, Kojimachi 3-chome Building 3-4-1 Kojimachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan Telephone: +81-3-4588-3922 (open from 10am to 5pm on weekdays).
Seems to me Mr Kobayashi by his actions obviously knew he was or could be the cause of crashing markets, causing FUD and lowering the value of the item he was entrusted to sell.
It seems Mr Kobayashi was lazy because he just wanted to get cash for the coins with minimal effort, he obviously did not seek out professional financial advice. I would be very doubtful if his excuse is because he could not find a financial advisor experienced with Bitcoin. With services like the one discussed on this site (https://www.leadjig.com/financial-advisor-marketing/) being used by financial advisors to generate leads, the Bitcoin advisers would have surely been proactive and found him first. It’s simple, he decided to get the funds for the creditors his way, not giving much thought about the repercussions of his actions on the market or others.
Note Mr Kobayashi’s sale dates and following price crash.
At a minimum it is irresponsible for a trustee to mishandle the equivalent of a nuclear bomb in a particular market even if they believe they are doing so in the interests of their clients or acting within the law. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean one should do it. We only need to remember the cause of the last World Financial Crisis as an example.
Perhaps Bitcoin and the crypto currency market would not have crashed had Mr Kobayashi read less Japanese manga and more of Marvel’s Spiderman: Quote from Uncle Ben “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”.
Such trustee actions actually help make a strong case for blockchain and smart contracts, in general. For instance a smart contract could have been created to dollar cost average the coin sales over an extended period of time on multiple exchanges, not harming the overall market, while at the same time getting the best price for clients, which would of course be noted on the blockchain forever as a matter of public record.
It is also quite easy to suspect that in retrospect such hasty bulk coin sales might prove quite foolish after comparing Mr Kobayashi’s average sale price of approximately (10,000 USD) to the market rate of Bitcoin even just a few short months after his last sale.
Green-Eco-EV News Reporting by Ken Green Burridge
Kenneth Burridge test-drives electric Nissan LEAF in Melbourne Australia
EV of the Year Judge, independent green journalist, photographer, author and sustainability activist that has published over 1000 articles. Mr Burridge’s travels have taken him to over 40 countries and 300+ major cities. He is originally from the USA, but has been residing in Australia for the last seven years. Connect to Ken Burridge on: Twitter, facebook, Google+, Linked in or website
