German government moves to move 6,500 BTC

The amount of digital assets held by governments around the world is a topic of interest to many people in the community. Most recently on June 19, a wallet labeled by Arkham as belonging to the German government was discovered transferring 6,500 BTC.


As reported in early February this year, German authorities confiscated 50,000 BTC worth $2.17 billion from pirated movie website Movie2k. This is the largest asset confiscation case in the country to date.
Since then, on-chain tracking platform Arkham has labeled the above wallet address, helping users easily track asset movements of the country's government.
The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) seized almost 50,000 BTC ($2.12B) from the operators of https://t.co/ck07DiJUAf, a film piracy website that was active in 2013.

The BKA received the Bitcoin in mid-January after a ‘voluntary… pic.twitter.com/0kC5tOPq6e— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) January 31, 2024
The German government wallet on June 19 made 4 transactions, with one withdrawal of 6,500 BTC worth more than 425 million USD to wallet B address “bc1q0unygz3ddt8x0v33s6ztxkrnw0s0tl7zk4yxwd” and another transaction of 2,500 BTC worth 154 million USD to address only.
Wallet B receives 6,500 BTC then transfers 2,500 BTC to another wallet C “bc1qq0l4jgg9rcm3puhhfwaz4c9t8hdee8hfz6738z”. This wallet C splits 2,500 BTC into four transfers of 500 BTC. Two of the four transactions were sent to Kraken and Bitstamp exchanges, the remaining two were sent to other unlabeled private wallets.

Such actions make the community suspect that German authorities are selling some confiscated Bitcoins. If this conclusion is true, it is not too surprising because it is possible that public authorities need to sell crypto assets to raise cash to serve compensation work.

Previously, the US government sold 9,800 BTC, then moved $2.1 billion in Bitcoin in April, causing a stir in the community. The action had a large impact on the market, pushing BTC prices down.

The German government wallet currently still holds 43,359 BTC worth $2.83 billion. It is unclear whether this country's officials will continue to move or not.
BTC price is currently fluctuating around 65,000 USD, not much change compared to 1 day ago.