The German government has drastically increased the amount of seized Bitcoin that it is moving to exchanges and market makers, with more than $900 million worth transferred already on Monday in a span of just 8 hours, per on-chain data tracked by Arkham Intelligence.

Germany has made a flurry of transfers in recent hours since Decrypt reported that the government had sent $28 million worth of Bitcoin to Coinbase and Bitstamp, split evenly, with another $28 million worth sent to an unidentified address.

The latest transfers include $200 million worth of Bitcoin sent to Flow Traders, along with further deposits to Coinbase, Bitstamp, and Kraken. Transferring funds to exchanges and market makers does not necessarily suggest that it's already been sold, but does point to likely interest in liquidating the assets.

The markets appeared to react quickly to the latest batch of transfers, with the price of Bitcoin plunging by nearly 3% over the last hour alone to $55,300, per data from CoinGecko. Bitcoin had traded above $57,000 earlier Monday.

The latest moves leave Germany's wallets with just $1.34 billion worth of Bitcoin, down from a recent peak of $3.5 billion one month ago. Germany has made numerous smaller transfers in recent weeks, but this is the biggest single-day series of transfers seen thus far.

Bitcoin trading. Image created by Decrypt using AI.

Bitcoin Price Retakes $57,000, Causing $160 Million in BTC Liquidations

Bitcoin retook $57,000 Monday morning, after slipping below $55,000 just a few hours earlier. This volatile start to the week has seen almost $160 million worth of BTC liquidations take place. The industry’s leading cryptocurrency fell to $54,600 in the early hours of Monday morning but climbed 4% to $57,000 in the 10 hours that followed. At time of publication, Bitcoin's price is around $57,175, up 0.6% on the day, per data from CoinGecko. Over the past 24 hours, approximately $102 million in B...

NewsMarkets
2 min read
Ryan S. Gladwin

Germany's Bitcoin holdings primarily come from funds seized from the creators of a long-shuttered movie piracy website called Movie2k.to. The government confiscated 50,000 BTC from the proprietors in January.

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.