For some time now German government It has been reported that he is getting rid of his Bitcoin holdings, adding significant sales pressure on the flagship cryptocurrency. On-chain data shows they still hold a significant amount of BTC that they have no choice but to sell.

How many Bitcoins does the German government have?

Data from the chain analytics platform Arkham Interview shows that the German government still holds almost 24,000 BTC ($1.42 billion). Further data shows that they are still looking to get rid of more of their holdings, as they have moved over 1,100 BTC to cryptocurrency exchanges and market makers in the last 24 hours. Specifically, the German government moved over 800 BTC to Kraken cryptocurrency exchange.

However, while the German government’s actions have undoubtedly had a negative impact on the market, recent report by Coindesk shows they have no choice but to get rid of those BTC holdings. Those bitcoins were part of the nearly 50,000 BTC seized from the operator pirated movie site Movie2k earlier this year.

Interestingly, a German state, Saxony, has found the film’s website guilty of money laundering and other illegal activities. Dr. Lennart Ante, co-founder and CEO of the German Blockchain Research Lab, explained to Coindesk that the Saxony government has to sell these bitcoins according to standard procedure.

Lennart mentioned that the Saxony General Prosecutor’s Office is usually responsible for liquidating confiscated assets and is required to liquidate them within a certain time frame. He also noted that the reason the police, rather than Saxony itself, initiate these sales is probably because they were involved in the initial investigation and are more familiar with moving and unloading such a immense amount of bitcoins. However, it became clear that the police agency was simply acting on instructions from Saxony.

Institutional investors buy Bitcoin after decline for third day in a row

As the German government continued to sell off its Bitcoin holdings, institutional investors see this as a buying opportunity to accumulate more. Data from Farside investors shows that Spot Bitcoin ETF recorded their third consecutive day of net cash inflow on July 9.

These funds recorded a total net flow of $216.4 million. They recorded net inflows of $294.8 million and $143.1 million on July 8 and July 5, respectively. This represents a return for these Spot Bitcoin ETFgiven that they had previously experienced mixed flows. This suggests that institutional investors were undecided about whether to commit to purchasing more Bitcoin.

However, the recent drop in BTC seemed to be an opportunity that these institutional investors could not miss. Their actions positively affected the price of the flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin almost at $60,000 again.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at around $59,000, up more than 3% in the past 24 hours, according to data data from CoinMarketCap.

Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com