German Government Transfers $172 Million in Bitcoin

The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) transferred 3,000 bitcoins worth $172 million on Thursday. On-chain analysis reveals that 1,300 bitcoins were sent to centralized exchanges (CEXs) Kraken, Bitstamp, and Coinbase, and the remaining to an unknown Bitcoin wallet. That translates to about $75 million moved to CEXs and $ 97 million to the unknown address.

PeckShieldAlert notified its followers about the BKA’s CEX-related transfers on X, “#PeckShieldAlertThe #Bitcoin address bc1qq0…738z (labeled as German Gov.?) has transferred 1.3K $BTC (worth ~$75M) to CEXs (#Coinbase& #Kraken #Bitstamp).”

This movement comes on top of another 3,000 bitcoins liquidated by the same wallet in the past few weeks. The BKA accumulated a stockpile of around 50,000 bitcoins by seizing assets from a movie piracy site, Movie2K. It intends to sell all the assets it holds.

As the BKA moved the assets, bitcoin’s price plunged below $57,000. Its selling activity has impacted bitcoin since June, adding selling pressure, which occurs when whale wallets, or those holding more than 1,000 bitcoins, sell even some of their holdings. These selloffs trigger other holders to liquidate their holdings too, causing the asset’s price to drop.

Nevertheless, the German government is not the only one transferring large amounts of bitcoins. The US government, on Thursday, also moved significant amounts it has collected through seizures. While not as much as the BKA, the US government’s transaction amounted to about $13.7 million. PeckShieldAlert wrote on X, “#PeckShieldAlert237 $BTC (worth ~$13.7m) from a wallet related to US Government law enforcement seizures has been transferred to a new address bc1qvc…n257.”

This, too, contributed to bitcoin’s price dipping. Beyond that, Mt. Gox’s wallet also conducted test transactions, moving just $25 to three wallets. Those transactions played a massive role in bitcoin hitting its lows—price points only seen two months ago when it was on the up and up.

Image by Jörn Heller from Pixabay

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