Home » Bitcoin » German government entity transfers 900 BTC to Kraken and Coinbase, sparks selling concerns

German government entity transfers 900 BTC to Kraken and Coinbase, sparks selling concerns

Jun. 25, 2024

The BKA-linked wallet transferred 400 BTC to Coinbase and Kraken, with additional 500 BTC moved to an untagged address.

German officer transferring Bitcoin to centralized exchanges

A wallet linked to the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) transferred 400 Bitcoin (BTC) worth approximately $24.34 million to Coinbase and Kraken on Tuesday morning, Arkham Intelligence reports. An additional 500 BTC ($30.4 million) was moved to an untagged address labeled “139Po.”

These transactions follow significant Bitcoin movements last week, with $130 million sent to exchanges on June 19 and $65 million on June 20. 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.

Arkham CEO Miguel More suggests that moving funds to exchanges may indicate an intention to sell the assets. However, the $24 million Bitcoin sale represents a relatively small amount in the context of daily trading volumes, with over $40 billion worth of BTC exchanged in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.

The German government currently holds 46,359 BTC, valued at around $2.8 billion at current prices. This positions Germany among the largest known nation-state holders of Bitcoin, behind the United States, China, and the UK.

The BTC in question originates from a seizure of nearly 50,000 BTC, worth over $2 billion at the time, from operators of the film piracy website Movie2k.to. The BKA received the Bitcoin in mid-January after a ‘voluntary transfer’ from the suspects.

These movements come as Bitcoin’s price experiences downward pressure, trading just above $61,000 as of Tuesday morning. The alpha crypto has fallen 11% monthly and over 7% weekly, according to Bitstamp data.

The potential for increased selling pressure from both the German government and the upcoming Mt. Gox repayments in July has sparked concerns in the crypto community. Mt. Gox is set to distribute around $9 billion worth of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) to approximately 127,000 creditors who have been waiting for over a decade to recover their funds.

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