German Authorities Offload Additional 2700 BTC

On July 12, a wallet associated with Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) transferred 2700 BTC, valued at $154.59 million, to trading platforms.

German Goverment started selling coins on July 12. At 15:02 UTC+8, it transferred a total of 1,200 BTC to Bitstamp, Kraken and Coinbase (400 BTC each), transferred 1,000 BTC to the suspected B2C2 Group: 139PoP…H7ybVu, transferred 500 BTC to the unmarked address: bc1qu3…guzr4j.…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 12, 2024

A total of 1200 BTC was sent to the addresses of Bitstamp, Kraken, and Coinbase; 1000 BTC to an address allegedly linked to B2C2 Group, and 500 BTC to an unmarked address.

One and a half hours later, 500 BTC were returned to the BKA from Kraken and Bitstamp.

On July 11, Arkham specialists tracked the transfer of 5000 BTC to Flow Traders, Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, and several other recipients, in addition to 5627 BTC valued at $328.89 million. The recipients of the latter transactions included Coinbase, Bitstamp, Kraken, Cumberland, B2C2, and an unidentified address.

UPDATE: The German Government is running out of Bitcoin.

The German Government just sent another 5000 BTC ($286.44M) to Flow Traders, Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, 139Po and bc1qu.

Today, they have transferred 10627 BTC ($615.33M) in total to market makers and exchanges.

They… https://t.co/vXtHwzUieK pic.twitter.com/4bOI56BJgN

— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) July 11, 2024

Initially, the wallet held nearly 50,000 BTC, seized by law enforcement in January from the administrators of the pirate movie site Movie2k. According to Lennart Ante, co-founder and CEO of Blockchain Research Lab, the cryptocurrency was confiscated by the police department of the federal state of Saxony. 

Regional legislation mandates the liquidation of seized assets within a certain period. This, the expert explained, accounts for the authorities’ sale of bitcoins, which began with small amounts on June 19.

The BKA wallet now holds 6894 BTC ($394.5 million) — 13.8% of the original amount.

Market Impact

CryptoQuant specialists recorded an increase in exchange balances but ruled out the influence of German authorities’ actions on the metric. 

They cited increased trading activity by speculators as the reason. The latter were concerned by the distribution of bitcoins to Mt.Gox clients and sales from the BKA wallet, analysts added.

Earlier, Bundestag member Joana Cotar criticized the authorities’ sale of confiscated bitcoins, calling these steps counterproductive.