German authorities sent another 2,700 BTC for sale.
On July 12, a wallet affiliated with the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) transferred 2,700 BTC worth $154.59 million to trading platforms.
1200 BTC in total went to Bitstamp, Kraken, and Coinbase addresses; 1000 BTC went to an address allegedly associated with B2C2 Group, and 500 BTC went to an unlabeled address.
An hour and a half later, 500 BTC from Kraken and Bitstamp returned to BKA.
On July 11, Arkham specialists tracked the transfer of 5,000 BTC to Flow Traders, Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp and a number of other recipients in addition to 5,627 BTC worth $328.89 million. The recipients of the latest transactions were Coinbase, Bitstamp, Kraken, Cumberland, B2C2 and an unidentified address.
The wallet originally held nearly 50,000 BTC confiscated by law enforcement in January from the administrators of pirate movie website Movie2k. According to Blockchain Research Lab co-founder and CEO Lennart Ante, the cryptocurrency was seized by the Saxony state police department.
Regional legislation provides for the liquidation of seized assets within a certain period. This expert explained the bitcoin sales by the authorities, which began with small amounts on June 19.
The BKA wallet has 6894 BTC ($394.5 million) remaining - 13.8% of the original amount.
Impact on the market
CryptoQuant specialists recorded the growth of exchange balances, but ruled out the impact of the German authorities' actions on the metric.
As a reason, they named the increased trading activity of speculators. The latter were concerned about the distribution of bitcoins to Mt.Gox clients and sales from the BKA wallet, the analysts added.
Recall, a member of the Bundestag Joanna Kotar criticized the sale of confiscated bitcoins by the authorities and called these steps counterproductive.