The German government has recently sold a significant amount of Bitcoin, totaling over $54 million, in a series of transactions that involved moving BTC to centralized cryptocurrency exchanges Kraken and Coinbase. This move follows previous sales of $130 million and $65 million worth of Bitcoin on June 19 and June 20, respectively. The German government received back $20.1 million from Kraken and $5.5 million from wallets linked to Robinhood, Bitstamp, and Coinbase. Currently, the government still holds 46,359 BTC worth over $2.8 billion.
The German government’s Bitcoin stash originally consisted of nearly 50,000 BTC, which was seized from the operators of a film piracy platform, Movie2k.to. The platform has not been active for over a decade. The recent sell-off of Bitcoin by the German government comes at a time when the cryptocurrency’s price is also being impacted by the announcement from Mt. Gox, a once-dominant cryptocurrency exchange. Mt. Gox has announced its plan to distribute billions of dollars’ worth of recovered Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash to creditors.
Analysts are concerned that the government selloffs could introduce significant selling pressure on Bitcoin, potentially causing the price to drop further. Bitcoin has already experienced an 11% drop over the last 30 days and recently fell below the $60,000 mark before recovering to trade at $61,100. The fear of substantial selling pressure from the government could add to the downward trend in Bitcoin’s price.
The German government has moved 400 BTC to exchange deposits at Kraken and Coinbase, and another 500 BTC to a different address labeled “139Po.” The government has previously interacted with the address “139Po,” as data from Arkham Intelligence shows transfers of 800 BTC on June 20 and 500 BTC on June 19 to the same address. The movement of BTC by the German government to various addresses and exchanges has raised concerns among analysts in the crypto market.
The announcement from Mt. Gox about distributing recovered Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash to creditors has had a significant impact on the cryptocurrency market, leading to a massive price drop. Mt. Gox, once the world’s leading Bitcoin exchange, collapsed in 2014 following hacks that resulted in the loss of 850,000 BTC. After years of legal battles, Mt. Gox managed to recover roughly 140,000 Bitcoins, providing a way to compensate creditors who had been waiting for over a decade to retrieve their funds. The potential sale of BTC by creditors could range from 65,000 to 140,000 and be worth nearly $9 billion.
