Following weeks of transfers that rapidly accelerated starting Monday, the German government has fully cleared its Bitcoin wallets as of Friday afternoon, according to on-chain data curated by analytics firm Arkham Intelligence.
Germany has sent billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin to exchanges and market makers in recent days, with the apparent intention to liquidate the assets seized from criminals. While some of the funds have indeed come back to Germany's wallets following movements out, this is the first time that the wallets have been completely emptied.
The government wallets held about $3.4 billion worth of Bitcoin one month ago, with about $2.9 billion as of July 1. Germany's transfers to exchanges really began in earnest on Monday, however, when the wallets still held $2.2 billion in Bitcoin. Now they're empty.
Germany has sent funds to exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Bitstamp, as well as to Cumberland and other market makers. While the moves don't necessarily mean that the funds have been sold into the market, as seen with previous transfers back from exchanges to its wallets, it does suggest that the government intends to sell the assets.
Fears that billions of dollars worth of sold Bitcoin would tank the leading cryptocurrency's price appear to have been relatively unfounded. Bitcoin is now up 3% on the week, including 1% over the past 24 hours, at a current price of about $58,300 as of this writing.
Editor's note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.