German Government Sells $195 Million Bitcoin

The German government has started selling over $195 million worth of the bitcoin it seized from the operators of movie2k.co in January.

The price of bitcoin was tracking lower on Wednesday as a government agency added to the mounting sell pressure on the leading digital asset. Data from Arkham shows that Bundeskriminalamt, or BKA, a criminal investigation unit tied to the German government, sold millions of dollars of bitcoin.

BKA moved $600 million worth of bitcoin on June 19, with $130 million of that stash sent to exchanges like Kraken and Bitstamp. On June 20, the agency moved another $65 million to Coinbase. At the time of writing BKA still held a bitcoin balance of $3.05 billion.

In January, the BKA seized 50,000 BTC from pirated movie website operators, in what prosecutors dubbed as the largest ever crypto seizures by German authorities. While the prosecutors did not name the website in question, it was revealed to be movie2k.co in a 2020 investigation.

The website’s operators used profits from advertising fees and subscription revenues to make large-scale purchases of bitcoin, German prosecutors said at the time. One of the operators voluntarily transferred 50,000 BTC to government wallets provided by the BKA, who said at the time that no final decision had been made on whether the government would sell them.

At the time, bitcoin was trading at around $43,000, but has since risen to a price of $65,000, which is presumably the price at which the government initiated selling.

The BKA’s transfers to crypto exchanges sparked fears that the bitcoin market could be headed for some short-term volatility. Pseudonymous crypto trader “@DaanCrypto” noted on X that the price of bitcoin saw a $500 drop at the same moment the government moved their coins.

While the government still has a sizeable stash of bitcoin to liquidate, large players on the other end of the market could potentially alleviate some of this volatility. MicroStrategy, the Nasdag-listed technology company, perhaps known best for its bitcoin acquisition strategy over the years, has purchased another 11,931 BTC worth $786 million, putting its total holdings at $8.3 billion.