Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency asset, is in the limelight as the German government, the Bundeskrimanalamt (BKA), has continued its aggressive BTC selling spree, transferring over 6,306 BTC as part of its ongoing liquidation strategy, which has triggered a broader discussion about its potential impact on the crypto asset’s price.
German Government Offloads Thousands Of Bitcoin
In spite of recent warnings from Joana Cotar, a member of the German parliament, regarding the unreasonable and ineffective Bitcoin strategy adopted by the government, they are still offloading additional BTC from the country’s holdings.
According to data from a well-known intelligence platform, Arkham, the German government moved the 6,306 BTC, valued at $362 million, to the address bc1qu, Cumberland, 139Po (either an institutional deposit or over-the-counter service), and Kraken early Tuesday. The platform also reported that out of the 6306.9 BTC, about 3206.9 BTC were transferred in the space of 20 minutes.
The post read:
In the past 3 hours, the German Government has sent 6306.9 BTC ($362.12M) to Kraken, Cumberland, 139Po (likely institutional deposit/OTC service) and address bc1qu. Of this, 3206.9 BTC ($184.58M) has been sent within the past 20 minutes.
Although the government moved a substantial amount of BTC yesterday, Arkham revealed that the government has gotten back a whopping 5,366 BTC from major cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase, Bitstamp, and Kraken following yesterday’s massive transactions.
It is worth noting that on Monday, the authorities also carried out some significant transactions, with over 5,200 BTC sent to centralized exchanges. Arkham revealed that the sovereignties sent the aforementioned coin to Kraken, Bitstamp, and Coinbase, and to the wallet address 139Po immediately after the firm reported the development on the X (formerly Twitter) platform.
Despite these substantial Bitcoin transfers, data from Arkham shows that the German government’s BTC holdings still hold over 22,847 BTC, which is worth a staggering $1.32 billion. This number is now less than half of the amount of BTC that was initially taken from Movie2k.
Given the potential impact of these large-scale transactions on the market and Bitcoin’s price, the actions have caused quite a stir within the cryptocurrency community. Bitfinex, a leading Hong Kong-based crypto exchange, highlighted that the consistent sell-off led to a 16% peak-to-trough decline in BTC’s value last week, falling from its Tuesday high to a low of $53,219.
Are Major Institutions Still Buying BTC?
The German government might be selling Bitcoin at a large scale causing the digital asset’s price to drop, but major institutions like VanEck have taken a bold step to buy the dip.
Matthew Sigel, the firm’s head of digital asset research disclosed the strategic move to acquire more BTC despite the recent decline. According to the research head, the company purchased the Bitcoin dip in several of its multi-asset portfolios on Monday, underlining its confidence in the asset and its potential to be a valuable component of investment plans.