In one of the biggest governmental crypto busts this year, the German government has seized a whopping 50,000 Bitcoin from two individuals they suspect are involved in running several illegal piracy websites.
This Bitcoin at current prices is worth about $2.17 billion and now sits in the custody of the German police, who likely have no idea how to use or handle it.
The case with the illegal piracy websites goes as far back as 2023, when two men, one from Germany and the other from Poland, allegedly began to create and operate illegal websites that offered pirated material.
These pirated materials ranged from movies, music, software, and even e-books, and were available for download to whomever needed them.
These men enriched themselves with the revenue generated from the website's advertising, subscriptions, etc, which they then converted into Bitcoin.
According to a press release from the Saxony police, the tax authority was the first to notice that something was wrong with the income declarations of these two men.
The tax authorities started the investigation with the police, who then began the probe and eventually tracked down the BTC wallets.
According to the police, the suspects cooperated with the police and willingly transferred the BTC in their wallets to the official police wallet.
So far, there are no details about who these men are or which websites they allegedly ran, but the police report mentions that these websites were some of the largest piracy websites in the world.
This Bitcoin seizure turns out to be the largest crypto seizure in the history of Germany, second only to the $3.36 billion worth of crypto that the US government seized from the home of James Zhong, in connection to the Silk Road hacks.
So far, the German police are still investigating the case, and looking for any possible accomplices or beneficiaries of the piracy scheme.
Bitcoin's price action has been closely monitored for weeks now, especially considering its current range between $38,000 and $45,000.
In a recent tweet from Ali, one of the most well-known analysts on Twitter, BTC usually rebounds strongly after hitting the mean MVRV pricing band.
Ali says that we are witnessing something similar at the moment, with Bitcoin's price already in the middle of a rebound from here.
Ali says that Bitcoin's recent bounce from the mean MVRV at $40,500 makes it poised to hit the 1.0 standard deviation line.
Where does this line sit?
Ali says that this line sits at $60,000, meaning that BTC will not only rally straight up from here, it is also poised to hit, break and surpass the $50,000 zone very soon.
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