Germany Still Holds $2.2B Worth of Bitcoin, Blockchain Data Reveal
Germany continues to hold 29,286 BTC, valued at $2.2 billion, as reported by Arkham Intelligence. This significant reserve could potentially exert selling pressure, accounting for approximately 9% of Bitcoin’s 24-hour trading volume. Germany has been gradually liquidating its Bitcoin stash since mid-June.
The recent sales by Germany, along with the reimbursements from the infamous Mt. Gox incident, have caused a wave of volatility in the cryptocurrency market. However, it appears that the drama may not be over just yet.
Arkham Intelligence’s data indicates that the largest economy in the Eurozone still possesses 39,826 BTC, worth $2.2 billion. This pending coin stash represents a noteworthy percentage of BTC’s daily trading volume, implying the potential for further price turbulence.
Earlier this year, the German Federal Criminal Police Office confiscated 49,857 BTC from the operators of Movie2k.to, a now-defunct privacy website that was last active in 2013. Since mid-June, the German government has gradually sold over 10,000 BTC, which has put downward pressure on the market rate of the cryptocurrency.
CoinDesk data reveals that BTC’s spot price has recently experienced a decline of nearly 20% to $55,490 over the span of four weeks. In the past seven days alone, prices slipped by nearly 13%. The broader market gauge, the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), has also dropped by almost 14% to 1,870 points within a week.
In an effort to mitigate the negative impact on the spot price, Tron founder Justin Sun offered to purchase BTC directly from the German government through off-market transactions.
Some observers argue that Germany’s recent BTC sales amount to a strategic blunder, putting the country at a geopolitical disadvantage. “Foolishly, the German Government has transferred more than $390 million worth of BTC to exchanges over the past few weeks to be sold for fiat currency. From a geopolitical perspective, it is a strategic blunder for any nation-state to sell bitcoin holdings for fiat currency given that they can simply print the latter out of thin air,” stated the July 5 edition of the Blockware Intelligence newsletter. The newsletter further emphasized the difficulty in acquiring Bitcoin compared to fiat currency, highlighting its limited supply and the substantial physical energy required for mining.