The last German government bitcoin is gone

The 50,000 Bitcoin confiscated by the LKA Saxony from the illegal streaming platform "Movie2k.to" have been sold; the last BTC was traded on July 12.

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2 min. read
By
  • Ulrich Schmitz
This article was originally published in German and has been automatically translated.

As transaction data examined by the crypto analysis platform Arkham Intelligence shows, there are apparently no more Bitcoins (BTC) in the alleged "Germany wallet". Yesterday evening, the public prosecutor's office in Saxony carried out a final transaction involving 3846.05 BTC (currently 224 million US dollars).

Arkham Intelligence tracked the Bitcoin transactions and identified several wallets that matched the authorities' transactions and published the data. The authorities have never officially confirmed these transactions, but have not denied them either. As reported by heise online, the alleged operator of the illegal streaming portal Movie2k handed over the keys to several wallets with a total of 50,000 BTC to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).

The sale was processed via so-called "flow traders" as trading partners on the OTC market. OTC refers to trading by professional and institutional investors who do not trade via a regular exchange, but "over the counter". The parties agree on a price without these prices directly influencing the prices on the crypto exchanges.

In Germany, the BKA assumes the role of crypto custodian for the public prosecutor's offices of the federal states, in this case for the state of Saxony. Movie2k had collected the Bitcoins between 2011 and 2013 as advertising revenue from the website. At that time, BTC prices fluctuated between 2 and 230 euros and had a relatively low value. Thanks to massive price increases, up to currently around 53,000 euros per BTC, the estimated total value of the proceeds is around 2.7 billion euros.

Some members of the Bundestag called on the government to place the bitcoins in the state reserve and hold them as inflation protection and to increase their value. However, the government decided against this and sold the German government's Bitcoin holdings.

(usz)