The German government is actively selling off portions of its large Bitcoin (BTC) holdings, moving significant amounts to various cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets, as per data from Arkham Intelligence. This includes a recent transfer of $24 million in Bitcoin, reflecting a broader strategy that could be impacting Bitcoin's current market trends.

German Gov’t Continues Bitcoin Liquidation

On June 25, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) moved 900 BTC in three separate transactions from a government-labeled wallet. Two transactions of 200 BTC each were sent to Coinbase and Kraken, while a larger transfer of 500 BTC went to an address tagged as "139Po," whose ownership remains unclear despite previous interactions with the German government's wallet.

"UPDATE: German Government selling additional $24M BTC. In the past 2 hours the German Government has moved 400 BTC to exchange deposits at Kraken and Coinbase. They have also moved 500 BTC to address 139Po. We have yet to see where these funds are moved," Arkham Intel reported via X.

These transactions are part of a larger trend of Bitcoin sales by the German government, which had earlier transferred $130 million BTC on June 19 and $65 million BTC on June 20. The June 19 and 20 transactions saw some funds returning from Kraken and smaller amounts from wallets linked to Robinhood, Bitstamp, and Coinbase. Initially, the wallet accumulated nearly 50,000 BTC, seized from the operator of the pirated movie website Movie2k.

"This is in addition to $130M BTC sent to exchanges on 19th June and $65M BTC sent on 20th June, although they received $20.1M back from Kraken and $5.5M from wallets linked to Robinhood, Bitstamp and Coinbase. Currently, the German Government holds 46,359 BTC, worth $2.8B at current prices," Arkham added.

The ongoing sell-off seems to be contributing to recent price pressures on Bitcoin, which has declined by 11.7% over the past month and over 6.2% weekly, currently trading just above $61,000. Analysts believe the German government’s actions on centralized exchanges (CEXs) are significantly impacting BTC’s performance.

Looking ahead, the market downturn might worsen in July as the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox plans to start repaying its creditors. With over 140,000 BTC worth $9.4 billion to approximately 127,000 creditors, the market could face additional selling pressure, potentially driving prices down further. However, Galaxy Digital’s head of research, Alex Thorn, suggests that the market might be overestimating the selling pressure.