Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office seized 50,000 bitcoins earlier this year, making the German government the fourth-largest holder of bitcoins, although on-chain analytics firm Arkham noted that the country is selling off nearly $200 million in bitcoins.

Germany sells nearly $200 million in BTC

On-chain analysis agency Arkham cited data and pointed out that Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, referred to as BKA) may have sold nearly $200 million in Bitcoin.

The BKA address originally held about 50,000 Bitcoins. On the 18th, it first conducted a small transfer test of 0.001 BTC to Kraken, Bitstamp and other exchanges, and then transferred 500 Bitcoins to each of them, and transferred 700 Bitcoins to Coinbase. Bitcoin.

However, 310 Bitcoins were eventually transferred back from Kraken. As of press time, BKA still held 47,179 Bitcoins, worth approximately US$3.05 billion.

Arkham tweets Germany’s BKA once hit $1.1 billion profit

Back in January, the BKA seized 50,000 BTC from the operators of a pirated movie website, the largest cryptocurrency seizure ever by German authorities. Although prosecutors did not name the website, it was revealed during the 2020 investigation to be movie2k.co.

According to German prosecutors, the website operator used profits from advertising, subscriptions, etc. to purchase Bitcoin on a large scale. One of the operators came under investigation and voluntarily transferred 50,000 BTC to a government wallet provided by the BKA, which at the time said it had not yet decided whether to sell the seized bitcoins.

After the Bitcoin holdings data platform BitcoinTreasuries took into account the Bitcoins seized in Germany, the German government’s Bitcoin holdings officially surpassed Ukraine’s 46,351 Bitcoins and ranked fourth, behind the United States, China and the United Kingdom.

At the time of the seizure by the German government, Bitcoin was trading at about $43,000, but if calculated at $65,000, the German government once made a profit of about $1.1 billion.

(The German government seized 50,000 Bitcoins, making it the fourth largest country after the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom)

Bitcoins transferred by BKA have not yet been deducted

This article Arkham, an on-chain institution: The German government sold nearly $200 million in BTC and still holds 47,000 BTC first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.