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

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

The Eurozone’s biggest economy still holds 39,826 BTC worth $2.2 billion, according to data tracked by Arkham Intelligence. The pending coin stash, a potential selling pressure, represents nearly 9% of BTC’s 24-hour trading volume of $25.3 billion, suggesting further price turbulence.

Early 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. Since mid-June, the government has liquidated over 10,000 BTC, putting downward pressure on the cryptocurrency’s going market rate.

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 CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), a broader market gauge, has dropped 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.

Per some observers, Germany’s BTC sales amount to a strategic blunder that puts the country at a disadvantage in geopolitical terms.

“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.