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German Government Entity Moves $24M Bitcoin to Kraken, Coinbase: Arkham

Tuesday’s movements come days after the entity shifted $425 million among wallets, with some bitcoin transferred to exchanges.

(Jason Leung/Unsplash, modified by CoinDesk)
(Jason Leung/Unsplash, modified by CoinDesk)
  • The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) transferred $24 million in Bitcoin across two transactions to crypto exchanges Kraken and Coinbase.
  • Another $30 million worth of BTC was moved to a new wallet, with previous transfers totaling $195 million in BTC sent to exchanges on June 19 and 20.

A wallet connected to the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) today moved $24 million in bitcoin (BTC) across two transactions to crypto exchanges Kraken and Coinbase in European morning hours, Arkham data shows.

Another $30 million worth of BTC was moved to a new wallet, which has not been tagged as an exchange as of Tuesday. These transfers are in addition to $130 million in BTC sent to exchanges on June 19 and $65 million in BTC sent on June 20, as previously reported.

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Arkham CEO Miguel More told CoinDesk over Telegram last week that moving to exchanges may indicate an intention to sell the assets.

As such, a $24 million bitcoin sale is a relatively small amount. Over $40 billion worth of BTC exchanged hands in the past 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows. There’s ready liquidity for up to $20 million in a BTC trade on Binance alone – meaning the amount is unlikely to immediately move prices.

The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) seized almost 50,000 BTC, worth over $2 billion at the time, from the operators of Movie2k.to, a film piracy website that was active in 2013.

The BKA received the Bitcoin in mid-January after a ‘voluntary transfer’ from the suspects.

Shaurya Malwa

Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis. Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA. He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.

Shaurya Malwa