Mt. Gox repayment extended to 2026! Can the Bitcoin price withstand the selling pressure of 34,000 BTC?

With court approval, Mt. Gox has just postponed its repayment deadline from this Friday to October 31, 2026, marking the third extension. The one-year extension effectively alleviates short-term selling pressure and transforms what could have been a supply surge event into another lengthy administrative cycle. Public trackers show remaining assets of approximately 34,700 BTC, valued at around 4 billion dollars.

Mt. Gox third extension, from date impact to process drip irrigation

The trustee stated that due to the incomplete creditor procedures and handling issues, the completion dates for basic repayments, early lump-sum repayments, and mid-term repayments have been postponed from October 31, 2025, to October 31, 2026. According to the official notice, this will result in a full year delay in the expected supply surplus period. As of the time of writing, the trading price of Bitcoin is close to $114,874.

The change of dates will convert delays on the calendar into delays in the process. A significant number of creditors still need to complete the steps of exchange and custody. Previous batch payments have shown that payments need to go through the exchange queue, custody release, and banking channels, which takes a long time. Therefore, even if the trustee releases the funds, the conversion and potential selling may be spread over several months rather than a single session.

This decentralized repayment model is crucial for assessing the impact on Bitcoin prices. If 34,700 BTC were released at a single point in time, it could indeed have a significant impact on the market. However, the reality is that these Bitcoins will be released in multiple batches through different exchanges and at different times. Moreover, not all creditors will sell immediately; some long-term believers may choose to continue holding.

The deadline has been postponed from last October, and now this situation has occurred again. This is the third delay for Mt. Gox, and the market has grown fatigued by this pattern of postponement. Each delay sparks short-term discussions, but the actual impact becomes less significant. Investors are gradually realizing that the repayment from Mt. Gox is a long administrative process rather than a decisive event for the market.

Although the on-chain total will fluctuate due to internal changes, the public tracker still places the remaining assets around 34,700 BTC. This figure has remained relatively stable over the past few months, indicating that the trustee has not moved assets on a large scale. Some small transfers may be due to internal restructuring or test transactions, rather than actual creditor repayments.

ETF monthly absorption of 36,000 BTC completely offsets Mt. Gox supply

The current scale environment is different from previous cycles. Since its launch, the U.S. Bitcoin ETF has attracted a cumulative inflow of $61.98 billion, with a net inflow of $4.2 billion just in October. Based on a price of about $115,000 per Bitcoin, the monthly absorption of Bitcoin is equivalent to about 36,000 BTC, which is comparable to the remaining Bitcoin reserves of Mt. Gox.

This comparison has fundamentally changed the market's assessment of the selling pressure from Mt. Gox. In the cycle of 2021 or earlier, the release of 34,700 BTC could indeed have a significant impact on the price of Bitcoin, as there was a lack of structural buyers to absorb such a scale of selling pressure at that time. However, in the ETF era, just BlackRock's IBIT fund manages $89 billion in assets, and a single product is enough to rival multiple times the remaining inventory of Mt. Gox.

This is not a benchmark absorption path, but it outlines the order of magnitude of regulatory demand relative to the surplus. If the pace of ETF creation reaches even a small fraction of the speed seen in early October, the impact of interleaved creditor sell-offs on Bitcoin prices can be translated into liquidity events through ETFs, futures, and spot intermediaries. Continuous issuance during market downturns, combined with the capability for token transfers through authorized participants and market makers, has created a structural buyer that did not exist in 2021.

Mt. Gox Supply VS Market Absorption Capacity:

Mt. Gox Remaining Holdings: 34,700 BTC (approximately 4 billion USD)

ETF Monthly Inflow: Approximately 36,000 BTC (4.2 billion USD ÷ 115,000 USD)

Annual Issuance: 164,250 BTC (after halving 450 BTC per day × 365 days)

Conclusion: The ETF's single-month absorption has surpassed the entire remaining amount of Mt. Gox.

The issuance has set a further benchmark. After the halving in April 2024, miners will add approximately 450 BTC per day, which amounts to about 164,250 BTC per year. This year's production is more than four times the remaining BTC quantity of Mt. Gox. Although the increase in issuance alone cannot determine the price, it provides a measure of how much additional supply the market has absorbed under normal circumstances.

CME Derivatives Depth and Hedging Capacity Significantly Increased

The depth of listed derivative products has also entered the autumn peak. Data from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group shows that cryptocurrency futures and options set historical highs in the third quarter, including a record nominal open interest of $39 billion on September 18 and an average open interest of $31.3 billion for the season.

The increase in inventory hedging, basis trading, and options activity means that the ability to mediate sporadic spot flows through incremental hedging and cross-exchange arbitrage has strengthened. This pipeline provides traders and arbitrage platforms with more space to store supply related to Mt. Gox without causing disorderly printing in the spot market. When creditors sell BTC through CEX, professional traders can immediately establish short hedges on CME, locking in the price difference and absorbing spot selling pressure.

The maturity of this derivatives market is extremely important in the assessment of Bitcoin prices. It means that the market has the capacity to absorb large-scale supply shocks from intermediaries, turning events that could potentially trigger panic selling into manageable liquidity events.

2026 Tax Window and Macro Risks Are More Critical

(Source: CryptoSlate)

The relevant risk calendar has now been extended to 2026. The timing for tax reporting may focus on disposable sales, especially around the end of the year and just before the filing deadlines. U.S. taxpayers close their calendar year on December 31, with the expected tax reporting period in mid-January, while the online self-assessment filing deadline in the UK is January 31, and the filing and payment deadlines in Japan are March 15. These dates may prompt creditors to harvest or sell to settle taxes.

Macroeconomics remains a decisive factor. The Bank of Japan's board took a more hawkish stance at the end of September, maintaining the possibility of adjusting interest rates or directly intervening in the exchange rate. The Bank for International Settlements recorded how the closure of the yen interest rate differential in August 2024 drove cross-asset deleveraging, and cryptocurrencies were also impacted. A similar tightening of funds in 2026 will force all risk assets to reduce their balance sheets, which poses a greater negative tail effect on Bitcoin prices than the distribution path of Mt. Gox.

A simple scenario framework can help map scale to reasonable outcomes, using 34,689 BTC as the initial suspension and 115,174 USD as the spot anchor. The low trickle scenario assumes 25% are sold, approximately 8,672 BTC, with a dollar value of about 1 billion USD. The basic scenario assumes 50% are sold, approximately 17,345 BTC, with a dollar value of about 2 billion USD. The high scenario assumes 80% are sold, approximately 27,751 BTC, with a dollar value of about 3.2 billion USD.

The key point is to use a scaling tool to compare the surplus with the strong ETF absorption over a week and the issuance after the halving for a year. If the realized sales are staggered and conducted through exchanges, over-the-counter markets, and custodial withdrawals within the observed processing window, then the market structure will provide more avenues for intermediating liquidity. If sales are concentrated around tax days, quarterly turning points, or macro shocks, the impact on Bitcoin prices may increase with underlying compression and weakening liquidity.

Creditors will also receive Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and the order book for BCH is thinner than that for BTC. The nominal dollar amounts involved are much smaller, but according to the trustee's repayment notice, the relative price sensitivity of BCH may be higher during the payment window. The change of the calendar does not eliminate supply risk; it merely alters the rhythm of the supply risk. The current reference points are the tax and rebalancing windows at the beginning and end of 2026, the CME expiration clusters, and any measures by the Bank of Japan that put pressure on yen arbitrage.