Germany Still Holds $2.2B Worth of Bitcoin, Blockchain Data Show

Germany has been running down its coin stash since mid-June.

Germany's government still has 39,826 BTC ($2.2 billion) in its pending coin stash, which could put further downward pressure on the cryptocurrency's market rate.

The Eurozone's biggest economy has been running down its coin stash since mid-June, with the sales impacting the spot price of BTC.

Germany's bitcoin sales and Mt. Gox's reimbursements have recently shaken up the crypto market, and the drama may not be over yet.

The stash is a potential selling pressure, considering that it represents nearly 9% of BTC's 24-hour trading volume of $25.3 billion on Wednesday, 27 July.

The pending coin stash could put further downward pressure on BTC's market rate, especially if the government decides to sell the coins in one go.

However, the rate could also be impacted by other factors, such as the demand for BTC and the overall market conditions.

Earlier this year, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) seized 49,857 BTC from the operators of Movie2k.to, a privacy website that was last active in 2013.

The website allegedly offered pirated movies, TV shows, and other copyrighted content, with users able to access the site via the Tor anonymity network.

The operators were reportedly running the site from 2010 to 2013, and they allegedly earned over 600 BTC (around $4.8 million at the time) from advertising revenue and donations.

The BKA began investigating the site in 2013, and they were able to identify the operators in 2019.

The operators were arrested in 2021, and the BKA seized the BTC stash as part of the investigation.

The BTC stash was later transferred to the German government, which has been slowly selling the coins to cover the investigation and legal costs.

BTC's spot price has declined by nearly 20% to $55,490 in four weeks, with prices slipping nearly 13% in the past seven days alone, according to CoinDesk data.

The broader crypto market has also been in the red recently, with the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) down nearly 14% to 1,870 points in one week.

Last week, Tron founder Justin Sun offered to purchase BTC from the German government off-market to reduce the negative impact on the spot price.

However, the government has not yet responded to Sun's offer. Some observers believe that Germany's BTC sales are a strategic blunder.

"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," the July 5 edition of the Blockware Intelligence newsletter said.

"Comparatively, bitcoin is much more difficult to acquire given the immense amount of physical energy necessary to mine it and its limited supply of 21,000,000," the newsletter added.