German government receives back $141 million in bitcoin from exchanges and entities

The German government wallet responsible for sending large amounts of bitcoin to exchanges and market entities received back 2442 bitcoins late last night.

According to data from Arkham, the wallet received 903 bitcoin ($52.3 million) from the crypto exchange Kraken. It also saw inflows of 1529 bitcoin ($88.6 million) from addresses currently unlabeled by the onchain analytics platform. The German government also received ten bitcoins ($575,000) from Bitstamp.

The inflows back into the wallet controlled by German authorities follow a large outflow to exchanges and entities yesterday. As The Block previously reported, more than 10,853 bitcoins (worth $637.7 million at the time) were transferred out yesterday.

As to why bitcoins would flow back into the German government wallet once leaving, one can assume "they were unsold bitcoin as part of a sale agreement between the crypto exchange and the country," according to The Block's Research Director Steven Zheng.

The latest transfers align with the German government's strategy to offload 50,000 confiscated bitcoins seized from the now-defunct film piracy website Movie2K in January.

Member of the German Bundestag and bitcoin advocate Joana Cotar criticized the government's decision to "hastily" sell the bitcoins it possesses in lieu of a comprehensive bitcoin strategy as "counterproductive."

The price of bitcoin is down nearly 2% on the day, according to The Block's Bitcoin Price Page.