TL;DR
- A German government entity transferred 400 BTC to Coinbase and Kraken, and 500 BTC to an untagged address, totaling approximately $54.74 million.
- The CEO of Arkham Intelligence suggests these transfers could indicate an intention to sell, though they represent a small part of the daily BTC trading volume.
- The origin of these BTC is a seizure from the Movie2k.to site, and the crypto community is concerned about possible increased selling pressure due to upcoming Mt. Gox distributions.
This week, Bitcoin (BTC) transfers by a German government entity were detected. A wallet linked to the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany (BKA) transferred 400 Bitcoin (BTC) to cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Kraken. Additionally, another 500 BTC were moved to an untagged address labeled “139Po.” In total, these transactions amount to approximately $54.74 million.
The CEO of Arkham Intelligence, Miguel More, suggested that moving these funds to exchanges could indicate an intention to sell the assets. However, although the amount of $24 million is significant, it is relatively small in the context of the daily trading volume of Bitcoin, which exceeds $40 billion, according to CoinGecko data.
Moreover, other notable transfers occurred last week when $130 million were moved to various exchanges on June 19 and another $65 million on June 20. Interestingly, the German government-labeled addresses also received $20.1 million back from Kraken and $5.5 million from wallets associated with Robinhood, Bitstamp, and Coinbase.
The German Government Holds 46,359 Bitcoin
The origin of these Bitcoin traces back to a seizure of nearly 50,000 BTC from the movie piracy website Movie2k.to. The BKA received these funds in January after a “voluntary transfer” from the suspects involved in the case. Currently, the German government holds 46,359 BTC, valued at approximately $2.8 billion, positioning it among the largest known nation-state holders of Bitcoin, behind the United States, China, and the United Kingdom.
It is noteworthy that Bitcoin’s price has been under pressure, with an 11% drop in the last month and more than 7% in the past week, trading just above $61,200 at the time of writing this article. The community is concerned about the possibility of increased selling pressure, not only from the German government but also from the imminent Mt. Gox distributions. Starting next month, the exchange will distribute around $9 billion in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash to about 127,000 creditors, who have been waiting for over a decade to recover their funds.
