On Monday, the German government started preparing for the largest Bitcoin dump to date by delivering $900 million worth of the cryptocurrency to exchanges.

According to Arkham Intelligence’s on-chain data, on July 8, more than 16,000 Bitcoins departed the exchange’s wallet, leaving 23,787.7 Bitcoins ($1.35 billion) in its reserves.

Germany’s Biggest Bitcoin Sale

At 8:32 a.m. ET on Monday, Arkham began to show indications of a sustained selloff. The government allegedly paid 2738.7 BTC ($155.3 million) to Kraken, Cumberland, an unidentified address, and an address probably connected to an institutional or over-the-counter (OTC) trading firm, among other “likely exchanges and market makers.” Government coinage were being received for the first time by Cumberland and the anonymous address. In less than two hours, Arkham reported that Germany had transferred an additional 8100 Bitcoins ($463.2 million) to Bitstamp, Kraken, Coinbase, and other exchanges. Of those, $200 million had been transmitted to Flow Traders, a market maker and proprietary trading company.

The Dreaded Bitcoin Selloff

In an effort to ease market selling pressure, Justin Sun, the billionaire cryptocurrency investor and founder of Tron, promised last week to buy the remaining Bitcoin in Germany. A German MP also expressed disapproval of the government’s strategy, suggesting instead that the coins be kept in a diversified treasury rather than being sold off entirely. This month, concerns about Mt. Gox’s Bitcoin redistributions and the German government’s sharp sell-off have sparked a market downturn that has brought Bitcoin to its lowest price since February. Although the value has subsequently risen above $56,000, QCP Capital, a digital asset trading firm, projects that Bitcoin will experience “subdued performance” as bankruptcy repayments approach.