Arkham: The German government failed to seize $5 billion worth of Bitcoin

ChainCatcher news reports that, according to Arkham monitoring, the German government failed to seize $5 billion worth of Bitcoin. In early 2024, German police seized 49,858 Bitcoins from the operators of the pirated movie website Movie2K. However, in July 2024, the government sold these Bitcoins for only $2.89 billion, with an average selling price of $57,900. Currently, there are still over 45,000 Bitcoins in Movie2K's wallet, almost equivalent to the initial amount seized, with this approximately $5 billion in funds spread across about 100 wallets, which have not been moved since 2019. Given that the German government has made no comments on this matter, it is likely that these funds are controlled by the operators of Movie2K.

It is reported that Movie2K is a movie piracy website that became active in 2013. Its operators were arrested in 2019 and voluntarily transferred about 50,000 Bitcoins to the German government in January 2024. The German government seized this batch of nearly 50,000 Bitcoins in early 2024 and transferred them.