Bitcoin
Bitcoin (BTC) Price Drops to $55K as German Government Moves Another $500 Million in Assets
Bitcoin (BTC) crashed Monday afternoon in Europe as the German government transferred more than $900 million in assets from its bitcoin holdings, blockchain data shows.
According to the blockchain data platform Arkham IntelligenceBitcoin wallets labeled as belonging to the German government moved a total of approximately 16,309 BTC in multiple batches to external addresses, including to cryptocurrency exchanges Bitstamp, Kraken and Coinbase and to market makers Flow Traders and Cumberland DRW.
Bitcoin’s price dropped 3% to $55,000 shortly after the latest batch of blockchain transactions totaling 8,700 BTC. It later recovered to just above $56,000, still down 1.2% over the past 24 hours.
The price action followed last week’s drop to the lowest price since February. Market watchers pointed to a massive oversupply hitting the market during the relatively quiet and low-volume summer trading season, with the German and U.S. governments apparently selling seized assets just as defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox begins issuing refunds.
With the latest transfers, the German government is already more than halfway through its selling spree, with stakes now reduced to 23,788 BTC worth $1.3 billion out of 50,000 BTC since it began unloading tokens last month, according to data from Arkham.
UPDATE (July 8, 16:10 UTC): Updates headline, story with aggregated numbers of BTC transferred from German government addresses, citing Arkham.