LONDON: Bitcoin skidded anew on concerns about possible sales of the token by creditors of the failed Mt. Gox exchange, fuelling doubts about the remaining impetus in a crypto bull run that began last year.

The largest digital asset slid as much as 5.2% yesterday before reversing the wobble to trade up 1% at US$57,850 as of 10am in London, some US$16,000 below March’s record high. Smaller tokens such as ether and XRP also erased losses and turned higher.

Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, which went bankrupt a decade ago after being hacked, is returning about US$8bil of bitcoin to creditors in stages, spotlighting the potential for a wall of supply to come into the market.

Sentiment has also been hampered by signs of German government disposals of seized bitcoin as well as waning inflows into dedicated US exchange-traded funds. Scepticism is growing about predictions from the digital-asset faithful that the original cryptocurrency is still on course to reach US$100,000.

Speculators are scouring charts for patterns that may signal an end to bitcoin’s tumble. — Bloomberg