Germany Speedruns Bitcoin Selloff, Moves $900 Million in Just 8 Hours

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.

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.