Tron founder Justin Sun has proposed buying the German government’s Bitcoin holdings, valued at over $2.3 billion. Sun expressed his willingness to purchase the Bitcoin off-market to mitigate any negative price impact from selling.
In a July 4 post to his 3.5 million followers, Sun stated: “I am ready to negotiate with the German government to buy all their BTC off-market to minimize market impact.” Concerns about the German government selling Bitcoin arose on June 19, when their wallet transferred 6,500 BTC, worth over $425 million.
I am willing to negotiate with the German government to purchase all BTC off-market in order to minimize the impact on the market.
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) July 4, 2024
Selling the remaining holdings could negatively affect Bitcoin’s price, making the wallet a topic of intense discussion among traders. Before this transfer, the wallet had held nearly 50,000 BTC since February 2024, believed to be seized from the pirate movie website operator Movie2k.
The 50,000 BTC is thought to be held by Dresden’s Land Revenue Office. The Arkham Intelligence platform identified the crypto wallet as belonging to the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). The BKA seized 50,000 BTC in Dresden in January from Movie2k, the suspected source of these funds.
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While it remains unclear which authority is selling the BTC, a BKA spokeswoman confirmed that the criminal unit does not hold the seized Bitcoin.
BKA spokeswoman Kristina Sawazki explained: “In principle, the sale or conversion of seized Bitcoins into Euros is the responsibility of the relevant public prosecutor’s office or court. The proceeds of seized assets are paid to the Land Revenue Office of the place where the competent court has its seat, in accordance with Article 60 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The BKA only preserves crypto-assets seized or confiscated in the course of investigations for the public prosecutor’s offices.”
The German government continues its Bitcoin-selling spree, with the government-labeled wallet consistently offloading Bitcoin since mid-June.
In its latest transaction on July 4, the wallet transferred $172 million worth of Bitcoin to multiple crypto wallets, with portions sent to three major centralized cryptocurrency exchanges (CEXs).
#PeckShieldAlert The #Bitcoin address bc1qq0…738z (labeled as German Gov.?) has transferred 1.3K $BTC (worth ~$75M) to CEXs (#Coinbase & #Kraken #Bitstamp) pic.twitter.com/a2w6CrDltl
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) July 4, 2024
A total of $75 million worth of Bitcoin was transferred to Coinbase, Kraken, and Bitstamp, suggesting the intention to sell the BTC.
Just two days earlier, on July 2, the German government-tagged wallet transferred $52 million worth of BTC, with 100 BTC sent to Coinbase, 150 BTC to Bitstamp, and 32.74 BTC to Kraken.
