Bitcoin retreats as German government sell-off intensifies

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) dropped below $56,000 as the German government sold more BTC
According to on-chain data, Germany sent more than 16,000 BTC to exchanges on Monday – the largest transfer in a single day.

Bitcoin prices fell below $56,000 again on Monday, down about 2% at the time of writing, as Germany took BTC sales to a new level.

More than 16,000 BTC of German government-held bitcoin were sent to crypto exchanges on Monday, according to ChainData – the largest such dump in a single day by a government-controlled wallet.

The sell-off intensified amid a rapid exchange of 2,700 BTC, 5,200 BTC and 8,100 BTC in a span of two hours.

“The German government sent another 5200 BTC ($297.3M) to Kraken, Bitstamp, Coinbase and 139Po after we posted this tweet. That makes this their biggest day yet – over 16,000 BTC in total,” the Arkham team posted on X.

The price of Bitcoin fell in the middle of the sale

Bitcoin's reaction to the selloff, which has continued over the past few weeks, has seen the price of Bitcoin drop from $57,877 to around $55,130 during the day.

Germany seized 50,000 bitcoins from Movie2k earlier this year. Over the past few days, it has accelerated the sale to reduce total holdings to 23,787 BTC at the time of writing. The price of BTC reached an all-time high in March, with the value of Bitcoin reaching over $3.6 billion.

However, with more than half sold and the price of BTC hovering around $55.8k, the total value of BTC has dropped to $1.34 billion.

Over the past week, the price of Bitcoin has fallen by more than 10%.