German police confiscated over $2 Billion worth of Bitcoin during an investigation into a movie pirating site named movie2k.to. It was one of the largest seizures of cryptocurrency by the German state police.
As per the reports by spiegl.de, 50,000 Bitcoins were secured in Saxony. As per polizei.saschen.de, the investigation into the suspicion of commercial, unauthorized use of copyrighted works and money laundering, among other works, was ongoing.
This investigation was directed against a 40-year-old German and a 37-year-old Polish. The movie portal was operative between 2008 and 2013. Various agencies, including the FBI, led this investigation.
Over the last few weeks, the German government has started transferring Bitcoin to various centralized exchanges. Let’s have a look at the impact of the German Government’s sale of BTC.
Decoding The Drop-In Bitcoin Price With The German Government Sale
When the German government acquired the Bitcoins, the price was $41,624. The government’s overall portfolio was around $2.1 Billion. On 18th June 2024, a day before the sale of Bitcoin began, the overall portfolio reached around $3.3 Billion. It was the time around when the BTC was near its all-time high.
Approximately three weeks ago, the German government started transferring 500 BTC to Coinbase and a similar amount to Kraken and Bitstamp. You can check their hash at “e23730f312f4d7aedf7da6055adcc1b2ce33a8cfd4fc59d0f380450a26242028” on any Bitcoin query site.
From June 19th to 29th, Bitcoin dropped $4,000 while the German government sent their BTC to CEX. The government sold over $2 Billion worth of Bitcoin from 3rd July to 12th July.
During this sale, BTC dipped $5,000, which could also be caused by various other reasons. Many analysts are saying that the current BTC market is liquid enough to acquire that amount of sale.
The overall profit generated from this Bitcoin sale from the day of acquisition to selling is around $951 Million.
The German government has recently sold another 1500 Bitcoins and currently holds only $350 Million. Various critics and some government officials have not supported the recent sale of Bitcoin. Let’s have a look to know what others are saying about this sale.
Everyone is not Supporting the German Government’s Move…
A member of the German Parliament, Joana Cotar, criticized the sell-off and said that the government should hold it as a strategic reserve. Cotar has also invited German officials to meet with the prominent Bitcoin influencer.
Justin Sun also offered the German government the opportunity to buy Bitcoin and minimize the influence of the BTC dump on the market. Some crypto critics have also questioned the Government’s decision and said they should have kept it as a reserve.
The sale has been profitable for the German government ($1 Billion). Meanwhile, the government’s profit would have been much higher if it had kept it as a reserve until the BTC price reached $90k to $95k.
It would be interesting to see how crypto regulations shape in Germany from here on.
