Here’s A Look Inside Germany’s Billion-Dollar Bitcoin Holdings And Why It Has Been Selling

For a while now, the German government has been reported to be offloading its Bitcoin holdings, thereby adding significant selling pressure on the flagship crypto. On-chain data shows that they still hold a significant amount of BTC, which they have no option but to sell.

How Much Bitcoin The German Government Holds

Data from the on-chain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence shows that the German government still holds almost 24,000 BTC ($1.42 billion). Further data shows they are still looking to offload more of their holdings, as they have transferred over 1,100 BTC in the last 24 hours to crypto exchanges and market makers. Specifically, the German government transferred over 800 BTC to the crypto exchange Kraken.

However, while the German government’s actions have undeniably negatively impacted the market, a recent report by Coindesk shows that they have no other option but to offload these BTC holdings. These bitcoins formed part of the nearly 50,000 BTC seized from the operator of the pirated movie website Movie2k earlier this year. 

Interestingly, a particular state in Germany, Saxony, found the movie website guilty of money laundering and other illegal activities. Dr Lennart Ante, co-founder and CEO of German-based Blockchain Research Lab, explained to Coindesk that the Saxony government must sell these bitcoins per standard procedure. 

Lennart mentioned that the general prosecutor’s office of Saxony is usually responsible for liquidating confiscated assets, and they are mandated to liquidate them within a certain period. He further remarked that the reason why the police agency and not Saxony itself is initiating these sales is probably because they were involved in the initial investigation and are more familiar with moving and offloading such a large amount of bitcoin. However, it has become clear that the police agency is simply acting under the instructions from Saxony.  

Institutional Investors Buy The Bitcoin Dip For The Third Consecutive Day

While the German government has continued offloading their Bitcoin holdings, institutional investors have seen this as a buying opportunity to accumulate more. Data from Farside investors shows that the Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their third consecutive day of net inflows on July 9. 

These funds witnessed a total net flow of $216.4 million. They had recorded net inflows of $294.8 million and $143.1 million on July 8 and 5, respectively. This represents a turnaround for these Spot Bitcoin ETFs, considering that they were experiencing mixed flows before now. This suggests that institutional investors were undecided about whether or not to commit to buying more Bitcoin. 

However, BTC’s recent dip seemed to have presented an opportunity these institutional investors could not pass on. Their actions have positively impacted the flagship crypto’s price with Bitcoin almost at $60,000 again. 

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at around $59,000, up over 3% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap. 

Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com