Germany explains why they’re selling so many Bitcoins and prepare to sell even more
Last Updated on 11 July 2024 by CryptoTips.eu
The German government had just about enough of getting the blame for the falling Bitcoin price. Yes, indeed, they’ve been selling billions worth of Bitcoins, but they have no choice apparently. In fact, they’re getting ready to sell even more.
Dresden
The German government of Olaf Scholz has come under fire from crypto fans in recent weeks for selling so many Bitcoins. As many young Germans are fans of crypto and Scholz desperately needs their votes for his unpopular government, the Germans decided this week to finally respond to the criticism.
Germany selling all their #Bitcoin will go down as one of the most retarded things their politicians ever did. pic.twitter.com/dLewFC1duv
— Uncle Rockstar Developer (@r0ckstardev) July 9, 2024
Firstly, it is not the entire German government that is selling Bitcoins, but only the state of Saxony. Furthermore, the local government in Dresden is legally obliged to sell seized goods within a certain period.
In January this year, the police of that state arrested the people behind the illegal streaming website Movie2k.to.
Germany is unloading another $1/2B clip of Bitcoin.
— Charles Edwards (@caprioleio) July 10, 2024
In a few years, this will be looked back on as one of the biggest geopolitical blunders of all time. It will be studied in universities. pic.twitter.com/QCPuP03XwC
Suppose you cannot afford a streaming service, then you used to be able to go to some illegal website in Germany and watch videos there. That apparently yielded quite a lot of money because Germany confiscated $3 billion worth of Bitcoins when it closed that website.
Euro 2024
The government in Saxony waited until the second half of June to sell, aka the maximum legally permitted period. That coincided with the start of Euro 2024, leading some crypto fans to question whether the timing was intentional (if you sell Bitcoins during Euro 2024 it might be less noticeable of course as people are watching football rather than crypto prices).
Just fyi, Germany selling bitcoin is fake news. It's not Germany that's been selling, but a tiny German state called Saxony. The state confiscated almost 50,000 BTC and has been selling its holdings as per standard practice for any assets seized during criminal investigations.
— Samir (Sam) Tabar (@SamirTabar) July 10, 2024
But that turned out not to be the case. However, the government in Saxony is now trying to sell too many Bitcoins at once. Last Tuesday they received around 200 million dollar worth of Bitcoins back from the trading platforms, simply because there was more supply than demand.
More than 60% of those German Bitcoins have now been sold and Dresden is preparing to sell hundreds of millions of Bitcoins again next week. You know what to expect.