In early June, a wallet marked as the "German government" began to transfer BTC previously seized from the pirated movie website operator Movie2k to the trading platform. Coincidentally, the US government's BTC holding wallet, which had not been moved for a year, also sent 4,000 BTC to Coinbase on June 27, suspected of starting the coin selling mode. On the other hand, the progress of Mt.Gox's compensation has been put on the agenda again, and BTC and BCH repayments will actually begin in July.

In fact, according to incomplete statistics, from 2018 to date, the governments of China, the United States, Britain, and Germany have confiscated more than 500,000 BTC from hackers, money launderers, etc., and Mt. Gox currently holds 140,000 BTC. The above number of bitcoins accounts for 3.32% of the total circulation of bitcoins.

Although governments currently basically adopt a batch and small-scale method to sell BTC, since these countries themselves are not crypto-friendly, the final method of dealing with their BTC holdings is likely to be sales, so many users are very concerned about their holdings.

In this article, BlockBeats will briefly list the current BTC holdings of major institutions and governments, BTC sales, and how to track their addresses for monitoring, for readers' reference.

Government holdings and sales

German Government - 45,000

Previously, it held 50,000 BTC, and as of press time, it had sold about 4,736 BTC in batches in June, and now has 45,000 BTC. On June 25, it transferred 200 BTC to Coinbase and Kraken respectively; on June 26, it transferred another 700 BTC to Coinbase, Kraken and Bitstamp, but on June 27, it transferred 145 BTC back to the on-chain address.

U.S. Government - 210,000

Compared to other countries, the U.S. government holds the largest amount of Bitcoin and handles it relatively cautiously. Between November 2020 and 2022, U.S. authorities seized a total of more than 210,000 Bitcoins in three separate operations, which were related to the dark web market Silk Road, Silk Road hacker Jimmy Zhong, and the hacker of the crypto exchange Bitfinex.

The U.S. government has a long history of selling Bitcoin. However, the U.S. government has not sold Bitcoin since July 2023 to March 2024. On-chain records show that the most recent sale was 4,000 BTC sent from a U.S. government address to Coinbase Prime on June 27.

As of press time, the U.S. government still holds 213,546 BTC.

UK Government – ​​61,000

The Bitcoin held by the British government mainly comes from the famous "Blue Sky Grey" case. According to data, the British government holds about 61,000 BTC, and as of press time, no transfer has been made. Related reading: "The world's largest money laundering case: more than 61,000 Bitcoins were seized, and the mastermind behind the scenes is still on the run with $6.3 billion"

Chinese government - 194,000

The Chinese government's BTC holdings originated from the famous PlusToken pyramid scheme in 2020, when the amount of Bitcoin seized was approximately 194,000. However, no on-chain address markers were found, so it is difficult for us to confirm whether there are any sales records.

The "whales" of national governments cannot be ignored. However, according to data, the largest single sale of Bitcoin in the United States was in March 2023, when 9,861 Bitcoins were sold for $216 million. If the government sells Bitcoin in small quantities and multiple times each time, the impact on market sentiment and currency prices will be smaller.

Mt.Gox - 140,000

In addition to the above-mentioned government holdings of coins being a major hidden danger in the market, the Mt.Gox exchange, which went bankrupt ten years ago, has also made it clear that it will start repaying BTC and BCH. According to data disclosed by Mt.Gox, its address holds a total of 141,685 BTC, which will be used for compensation and repayment.

On May 28, the Mt.Gox account address transferred 141,685 bitcoins in 10 consecutive transactions. This was the first action of Mt. Gox's cold wallet in five years, which attracted great attention from the community. According to the latest email notification from Nobuaki Kobayashi, repayments will begin in July 2024. This is the first time that Mt.Gox has made repayments in the form of BTC and BCH, which means that the 141,686 BTC (and a roughly equal amount of BCH) held by Mt.Gox will begin to flow into the market. These BTC account for 0.72% of the total supply of Bitcoin in circulation, worth approximately $8.54 billion.

Previously, BlockBeats interviewed Mindao, one of the creditors of Mt. Gox, about the situation. He said, "Because most creditors have sold their money to those funds, this part of the selling pressure has long been hedged. And those of us who have held on to the end will definitely not sell at this time."

On June 24, Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy, wrote on the X platform that the number of tokens ultimately distributed in the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case will be less than people imagine, and the Bitcoin selling pressure caused by Mt. Gox will be less than expected.

BTC holdings of other institutions and organizations

In addition to the government, companies such as Tesla and MicroStrategy also hold BTC. After the BTC ETF spot was approved, companies such as BlackRock and Fidelity that have opened BTC ETF investment funds also joined the ranks of coin holders. Since there have been many related statistical articles before, the above-mentioned companies’ coin holdings and address tracking methods will not be repeated in this article.

The second half of the year is still optimistic, patiently waiting for the release of positive news

The market experienced a sharp decline in June, which had a certain impact on investor confidence, but the long-term outlook for cryptocurrencies remains optimistic. The long-awaited ETH ETF is coming soon; the interest rate cut has not yet been implemented; presidential candidates Trump and Biden have successively announced that they will accept political donations in the form of cryptocurrencies, showing goodwill to the cryptocurrency market. All signs indicate that as the global economy changes, cryptocurrencies have already gained a place in emerging economies. The second half of 2024 is even more worth looking forward to.

The bull market is far from over, please be patient and wait for the market to repair.

Appendix: The on-chain tracking URL for the above-mentioned huge BTC holding address

Mt.Gox holding address: https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/explorer/entity/mt-gox

US government holding address: https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/explorer/entity/usg

German government holdings address: https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/explorer/entity/germany