Mt. Gox Reimbursements Stir Up Crypto Market
Germany’s bitcoin (BTC) sales and Mt. Gox’s reimbursements have recently shaken up the crypto market, and the drama may not be over yet. The Eurozone’s largest economy still holds 39,826 BTC worth $2.2 billion, according to data tracked by Arkham Intelligence. This substantial coin stash, representing nearly 9% of BTC’s 24-hour trading volume of $25.3 billion, suggests further price turbulence.
Earlier this year, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) seized 49,857 BTC from the operators of Movie2k.to, a piracy website last active in 2013. Since mid-June, the government has liquidated over 10,000 BTC, putting downward pressure on the cryptocurrency’s market rate.
Mt. Gox Reimbursements
BTC’s spot price has declined by nearly 20% to $55,490 over four weeks, with a nearly 13% drop in the past seven days alone, according to CoinDesk data. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), a broader market gauge, has dropped nearly 14% to 1,870 points in one week.
Last week, Tron founder Justin Sun offered to purchase BTC from the German government off-market to reduce the negative impact on the spot price. Some observers view Germany’s BTC sales as a strategic blunder that puts the country at a disadvantage geopolitically.
“Foolishly, the German Government has transferred more than $390 million worth of BTC to exchanges over the past few weeks to be sold for fiat currency. From a geopolitical perspective, it is a strategic blunder for any nation-state to sell bitcoin holdings for fiat currency given that they can simply print the latter out of thin air,” stated the July 5 edition of the Blockware Intelligence newsletter. “Comparatively, bitcoin is much more difficult to acquire given the immense amount of physical energy necessary to mine it and its limited supply of 21,000,000,” the newsletter added.
