The sell-off of the 50,000 Bitcoin seized by the Saxon authorities in January continues at record speed today. As of now, only less than 30,000 BTC are still in the possession of the state of Saxony. What will happen to the remaining stocks is currently unclear.
At the start of the week alone (as of 16:15), 10,839 BTC with an equivalent value of around 570 million euros had already flowed out of the BKA wallet. The BTC was transferred to known crypto exchanges, trading companies and unidentified addresses.
The state of affairs
The transactions that can be viewed openly via the Bitcoin blockchain have revealed a wide variety of payment flows for some time. These show that the wallet managed by the Federal Criminal Police Office has already sent a total of almost 6,800 BTC to known crypto exchanges. Of these, almost 1,480 BTC flowed back again, but this only minimally reduced the selling pressure - even if this led to unjustified rumors that Germany had bought back Bitcoin.
In addition to the flows to the Coinbase, Kraken and Bitstamp exchanges, the BKA sent just over 10,000 BTC to an unidentified address. The well-known analysis firm Arkham Intelligence assumes that the transactions to the 139Po address are so-called "over the counter (OTC)" sales, i.e. transactions that bypass the market in order to avoid triggering too much price pressure on open exchanges, which could affect their own selling price.
This morning, 855 BTC also flowed to another unidentified address - it is possible that these were also sales. In addition, the BKA has also transferred more than 6,500 BTC to the trading firms Cumberland and Flow Traders, although it is not entirely clear whether these are also sales or whether these Bitcoin are merely being made available to the two market makers as liquidity.
The interim summary of the transactions to date is as follows:
- 6,783 BTC to the well-known exchanges Coinbase, Bitstamp and Kraken
- 1,480 BTC from the exchanges back to the BKA
- 10,078 BTC to the unidentified 139Po address (probably OTC sales)
- 855 BTC to the unidentified bc1q address (probably OTC sales)
- 6,587 BTC to trading firms Flow Traders and Cumberland (likely sales or liquidity provision)
What will happen with the remaining Bitcoin
The respective public prosecutor's office or the competent court is responsible for the sale of the Bitcoin seized as part of the criminal proceedings against the operators of the illegal movie streaming platform movie2k.to. The LKA Saxony informed Blocktrainer.de of this on request. It also stated that the proceeds from the sales go to the respective state treasury where the competent court is based. In this case, the decisions are made in Saxony, which is why the proceeds from the sales go to the treasury of the federal state of Saxony.
Meanwhile, the public prosecutor's office has stated that the proceedings regarding the handling of the BTC holdings have not yet been concluded and that no further information can be provided. In recent weeks, it has also been suggested that film studios might still be able to assert claims. It therefore remains to be seen how many of the remaining Bitcoin will ultimately end up on the market.
Bitcoin price remains unimpressed so far
After the Bitcoin price had already dropped considerably last week - presumably in anticipation of further selling pressure - the asset has so far been unimpressed by the potential sale of more than 10,000 BTC by the German authorities on the first trading day of the new week.
It remains to be seen whether the potential sales have already been priced in or whether they could put further pressure on the asset. There is also the approximately 140,000 BTC that are currently being paid out step by step to the injured parties by the Bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox, which collapsed in 2014. The coming weeks are likely to be extremely exciting and informative.
