Cryptocurrencies plunged on Friday as investors focused on the nearly $9 billion payout to users of Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Collapse.

Bitcoin’s price fell nearly 3% to $56,571.00, according to Coin Metrics. Earlier in the day, the world’s largest cryptocurrency fell to $53,513.55, marking its first trade below the $55,000 level since Feb. 27.

Meanwhile, rival token ether fell around 5% to $2,971.68.

At one point, the entire cryptocurrency market lost more than $170 billion in combined market capitalization in a 24-hour period, according to data from CoinGecko.

On Friday, Mt. Gox bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi said in a declaration which had begun making payments in bitcoin and bitcoin cash to some of the creditors through a number of designated cryptocurrency exchanges.

The Mt. Gox administrator did not specify how much money was transferred to these exchanges.

He noted that the remaining funds would be returned to creditors once a number of conditions were met, including confirmation of the validity of registered accounts and completion of discussions between the trustee and designated cryptocurrency exchanges.

The trustee is still working to ensure that repayments “can be made safely,” Kobayashi wrote, asking that “creditors eligible for rehabilitation please wait a little while.”

This happened after a small amount of bitcoin was moved from wallets associated with Mt. Gox, according to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, with the largest movement being a $24 transfer to Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank.

Bitbank is among the beneficiaries listed to support refunds.

Recently, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has been pressured by news of the collapse of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, setting up the distribution of approximately US$9 billion of coins to users.

This dumping of coins into the market is expected to lead to some significant selling action.

The drop in cryptocurrency prices has led to massive liquidations in derivatives markets, according to crypto data firm Coinglass, which suggests that 229,755 traders had their positions worth a combined $639.58 million liquidated in the past 24 hours. Of that, $540.46 million represented long trades — financial positions taken when an investor expects an asset’s price to appreciate in the long term.

Also putting pressure on cryptocurrency markets, the German government on Thursday sold about 3,000 bitcoins — worth approximately $175 million at today’s prices — from a pile of 50,000 bitcoins seized in connection with the movie piracy operation Movie2k, according to Arkham Intelligence.

Arkham, which is monitoring Germany’s bitcoin wallet, noted that the government still holds more than 40,000 bitcoins, valued at more than $2 billion.

Industry experts still expect bitcoin prices to rise again later in the year as expected short-term selling pressure from Mt. Gox payments eases.

Analysts at crypto data and research firm CCData said in a report Tuesday that bitcoin had not yet reached the top of its current appreciation cycle and will likely reach a new all-time high.

Historical market “cycles” have shown that the so-called bitcoin halving event — which cuts off the supply of new bitcoins to the market — has always preceded a period of price expansion that can last between 12 and 18 months “before producing a cycle top,” CCData said in its report.

The last Bitcoin halving occurred on April 19th this year, so these historic deadlines have not yet passed.

“Furthermore, we observed a decline in trading activity on centralized exchanges for nearly two months following the halving event in previous cycles, which appears to have mirrored this cycle. This suggests that the current cycle could expand further into 2025,” CCData said.

Tom Lee, co-founder and head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, told CNBC:Sound box“on Monday he Still Sees Bitcoin Hitting $150,000 Despite “Excess” From Upcoming Mt. Gox Disbursement of tokens to creditors.

“If I were investing in crypto, knowing that one of the biggest gluts was going to disappear in July, I would think that would be a reason to expect a pretty sharp recovery in the second half,” Lee said.

Investors are still waiting for the launch of an ether exchange-traded fund in the US, which would occur after the approval of the first US spot bitcoin ETF in January.

In May, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved a rule change that would pave the way for ETFs that buy and hold ether.

VanEck, BlackRock, Bitwise and Galaxy Digital are among the companies looking to launch their own ether ETFs.

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