Joana Cotar, a member of the Bundestag (German parliament), has taken exception to her government’s sudden offloading of large amounts of Bitcoin. She strongly criticized this decision and wants the state machinery to HODL, not sell, the roughly $2.8 billion worth of Bitcoin left in its coffers.
Cotar posted on X and tagged her fellow MPs and Chancellor Olaf Scholz in her post. She tweeted:
She urged the government to refrain from prematurely selling state-owned crypto. She called it a “strategic reserve currency,” a means to diversify state assets and a hedge against inflation. She also claimed it would promote government innovation. Representative Cotar said the Germans would be far better off HODLing BTC for now.
How Did Germany Land its 50,000 BTC Stash?
The German government reportedly seized a massive 50,000 in Bitcoin when it raided illegal torrent streamer movie2k.to in 2013. Bitcoin was worth less than $500 back then, and the total amount seized was around $25 million. However, fast-forward 11 years, and the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has risen more than 100 times, and the European nation’s stash is worth over $2.8 billion.
German Liquidation Causes Panic in Markets
Perhaps the government thought it had profited enough from the price movements and started liquidating its massive BTC holdings, one of the largest in the world. Recently, it moved $195 million worth of BTC to popular crypto exchange platforms from its movie2k recovery wallets, sparking a selling frenzy in crypto circles.
The news was accentuated by the fact that the selling coincided with Mt. Gox’s payments to its creditors. Mt. Gox was a Japan-based crypto exchange hacked for a whopping 800,000 BTC in 2014. Its creditors have been waiting for compensation ever since and after a grueling 10-year wait, 200,000 BTC are set to be transferred back to them, worth more than $8 billion.
These two developments became major sell-the-news events in crypto, dragging the crypto market below into bearish territory. Earlier yesterday, the premier digital currency moved below $54k for a short while before recovering below $56k.