- Germany is selling off 282.74 BTC, worth over $16 million at press time, days after selling part of its stash in multiple transactions that have impacted the price of Bitcoin.
- Bitcoin is hurling towards $55,000 after the sales from Germany, coupled with the first movement in a month of BTC held by the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox.
Bitcoin has dropped by nearly 10% since the start of the month, with the German government’s continued BTC sales. The movement of BTC held by the defunct Mt. Gox crypto exchange is spooking traders.
BTC trades at $57,450, dipping 4.78% in the past day amid a broader market correction that led to a 4% dip in the overall market cap. Other major coins have seen bigger dips, with Ethereum and Cardano’s ADA losing around 6%, while BNB, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Toncoin, and Litecoin all lost over 7%.
Bitcoin’s price has been going downhill since July 1, when it set a weekly high of $63,663. Since then, it has lost around 9.7% and dipped briefly below $57,000 earlier today for the first time since before the bull rally started in February this year.
The German government’s recent shakeup has played a massive part in the downturn. Germany has transferred over 3,000 BTC into centralized exchanges in the past two weeks, including Coinbase, Kraken, and Bitstamp. Today, the government transferred 1,300 BTC, worth $75 million, to the three exchanges, as revealed by blockchain analytics firm PeckShield on X.
#PeckShieldAlert The #Bitcoin address bc1qq0…738z (labeled as German Gov.?) has transferred 1.3K $BTC (worth ~$75M) to CEXs (#Coinbase & #Kraken #Bitstamp) pic.twitter.com/a2w6CrDltl
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) July 4, 2024
It then transferred another 1,700 BTC, worth $97 million, to another unknown wallet address.
Lucy Hu, a senior analyst with Metalpha crypto investment firm, believes that these transfers have been massive and moved the market. She stated:
Among the top reasons for the price drop was the German government moving more than $50 million to crypto exchanges, creating sell speculation in the market.
As Crypto News Flash reported earlier, TRON founder and HTX exchange owner Justin Sun has jumped to the rescue and offered to buy out the entire $2.3 billion Bitcoin stash that the German government holds so that it doesn’t affect the market.
In the meantime, the German government, through its Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), will likely continue selling the BTC, which it reportedly seized from a pirate movie site. Speaking to one outlet, a government spokesperson said that the government doesn’t hold onto digital assets and sells them for euros whenever a related case is concluded.
“The BKA only preserves crypto-assets seized or confiscated during investigations for the public prosecutor’s offices,” spokesperson Kristina Sawazki told news outlets.
The effect of the German sales is exacerbated by Mt. Gox, the defunct exchange whose creditors have been waiting for a decade to be refunded. Reports have revealed that the refunds are scheduled for this month and will be in BTC and Bitcoin Cash. This could further weigh down on the top crypto’s price even before it has had the time to recover from its current dip.
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