On-chain Analytics Company Arkham reports cryptocurrency addresses linked to German officials appeared to transfer an additional 250 BTC ($15.4 million) to Bitstamp and Kraken on Wednesday morning, showing possible plans to sell the assets.
According to data from the blockchain analytics platform, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) sent 125 BTC ($7.7 million) to each cryptocurrency exchange at around 7:52 a.m. UTC. According to data from Arkham, it simultaneously sent 500 BTC ($30.9 million) to the address “139Po.” Although the address has not yet been identified by the platform, it may also belong to an exchange.
“The German government also transferred 0.001 BTC to [market maker] Flow Traders, which may be a test transaction and will sell BTC through Flow Traders,” Lookonchain, a fellow analytics firm, stated on X.
50,000 BTC seized
Bitcoin began being sent to cryptocurrency exchanges last week from addresses identified by German authorities after 50,000 BTC were seized from film-piracy site Movie2k in January.
The German government on Tuesday transferred 500 BTC ($30.4 million) to the “139Po” address and 400 BTC ($24.3 million) to Coinbase and Kraken. This follows last week’s round of transactions. The German government has already sent about $150 million of the seized Bitcoin to addresses belonging to cryptocurrency exchanges, while an additional $147 million was sent to the “139Po” account.
But last week, Kraken had returned 310 BTC ($20.1 million) to the German government. In addition, Arkham claims that since June 20, it has received 90 BTC ($5.5 million) from wallets associated with Coinbase, Bitstamp, and Robinhood.
According to data from Arkham, the German government currently holds 45,609 BTC, worth about $2.8 billion at current prices. According to Bitcoin Treasuries, Germany is one of the largest nation-state holders of Bitcoin, trailing only the United States, China, and the United Kingdom with 213,246 BTC, 190,000 BTC, and 61,000 BTC, respectively.
The Bitcoin price page on The Block shows that the current price of Bitcoin is $61,205. Since the German government began transferring funds to exchange last week, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has fallen by about 6%.
Following the revelation that the now-defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox was going to pay out nearly $9 billion in Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash in July, the price of Bitcoin momentarily fell below $60,000.
