German government continues bitcoin transfers, moves nearly $350 million to various entities

The German government has once again resumed transferring bitcoins to centralized exchanges and other market entities with the presumed intent to sell on Wednesday.

Authorities have transferred more than 1,127 bitcoins to an address identified as belonging to Flow Traders by the onchain analytics platform Arkham. 500 bitcoins have also been sent to crypto exchange Coinbase, while another 750 were sent to rival exchange Kraken. At the same time, Arkham also identified Cumberland DRW as receiving more than 536 bitcoins from the German government. Finally, a presumed institutional deposit or OTC address received some 2,250 bitcoins.

Taken in combination, the German government has apparently transferred out more than 5,853 bitcoins, worth approximately $342,694,905. It still holds more than $1.06 billion in confiscated bitcoin, according to Arkham.

The latest transfers align with the German government's strategy to offload the confiscated bitcoins from a now-defunct movie piracy website. Recent days and weeks have seen authorities send bitcoins to various entities, which sometimes send bitcoins back to the government — presumably because "they were unsold bitcoin as part of a sale agreement between the crypto exchange and the country," The Block's Research Director Steven Zheng said .

Germany's selling it hasn't proven popular with everyone in the country's government. Member of the German Bundestag and bitcoin advocate Joana Cotar criticized the government's decision to "hastily" sell the bitcoins it possesses in lieu of a comprehensive bitcoin strategy as "counterproductive." The government currently holds well under half of the bitcoins it originally confiscated.

Despite the widespread expectations that the German government will continue to sell its bitcoins, the price of the foremost cryptocurrency is up more than 1.5% on the day, according to The Block's Bitcoin Price Page .

This story is developing and will be updated with more information as it arises.