UPDATE: Germany moves more bitcoins to exchanges, now has 3,846 BTC left to sell
Quick Take
- Following the latest round of transfers to and from crypto exchanges and market markers on Friday, Germany now has around 3,846 bitcoins ($222 million) left to sell.
- The country’s government has been offloading the 50,000 bitcoins it seized from online film piracy platform Movie2K in January.
A German government authority moved more bitcoins to wallets linked to Bitstamp, Coinbase, Kraken, B2C2 Group, Cumberland DRW and an unlabeled OTC service address on Friday, as well as receiving some funds back, according to data from Arkham Intelligence.
At around 7:02 a.m. UTC on Friday, the German government moved 500 bitcoins ($28.6 million) to the wallet address “bc1qu” which is a presumed OTC service institutional deposit address, per Arkham's data. This was soon followed by transfers to centralized exchanges Coinbase, Kraken and Bitstamp, each containing 400 bitcoins ($22.9 million). The German authorities also sent 1,000 bitcoins ($57.3 million) to a wallet address identified by Arkham as being linked to B2C2 Group at the same time.
However, an hour later at around 8:04 a.m. UTC, 250 bitcoins ($14.3 million) were returned from Bitstamp, with another 250 bitcoins ($14.3 million) sent back from Kraken at 8:22 a.m UTC.
The authority later sent 748.25 bitcoins ($42.8 million) to market maker Cumberland DRW at 9:26 a.m. UTC, followed by another 1,000 bitcoins (57.5 million) to B2C2 Group at 1:34 p.m. UTC and 800 bitcoins ($46.2 million) to Kraken at 1:44 p.m. UTC. It also sent a further 500 bitoins ($28.9 million) to the “bc1qu” address at the same time.
In total, the German government has sent out 5,748.25 bitcoins ($330 million) on Friday and received 500 bitcoins ($28.6 million) back. It now has around 3,846 bitcoins ($222 million) left to sell out of 50,000 bitcoins it seized from film piracy website Movie2K in January. At the current rate, the German government may soon exhaust its supply of bitcoin.
The latest transfers follow the German government's apparent transfer out of 10,627 bitcoins on Thursday, worth around $615.3 million at the time. However, it subsequently received 4,169 bitcoins ($239.6 million) back from Bitstamp, Coinbase and Kraken, alongside other unlabeled addresses, according to Arkham. The returned bitcoins were presumably the result of failing to sell them per a sale arrangement.
Independent member of the German Bundestag and bitcoin advocate Joana Cotar previously criticized the German government’s bitcoin sales as “counterproductive.”
The largest cryptocurrency by market cap’s value fell 0.5% over the past 24 hours to $57,896, according to The Block’s bitcoin price page. Bitcoin's price remains down around 11% since the German authorities began moving funds to exchanges on June 18.
Updated with additional details throughout.
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