According to a new report from CoinGecko, government accounts hold 2.3% of the total bitcoin supply. Overall, their assets amount to 463,741 bitcoins, which is a decrease from 529,591 less than a year ago.
Despite these impressive surface figures, the overall trend is downward. Two of seven owners have completely liquidated their assets, and only El Salvador is actually buying more bitcoins.
Are governments getting rid of bitcoin
While corporations like MicroStrategy often attract significant media attention due to their huge bitcoin holdings, governments also represent two of the top 10 bitcoin whales.
CoinGecko identified some important trends when looking at all relevant statistics. For example, only five countries currently maintain active bitcoin reserves. The federal government of the United States is the largest national owner of bitcoin. The crypto industry has been closely studying its behavior, and the industry is making significant efforts to influence policy. The key issue is that the U.S. does not buy bitcoin but confiscates it during criminal operations.
At the end of Joe Biden's presidency, the country began liquidating its bitcoin reserves, which is the main motivating factor in Trump's Crypto Reserve. The reserve is not intended for purchasing bitcoin, but organizes the existing stock and protects it from future sales.
China is somewhat of an undervalued government owner of bitcoin, which can be explained by two reasons. Obviously, China is somewhat hostile to cryptocurrencies, and unconfirmed rumors about policy liberalization may affect the market.
The country confiscated nearly 200,000 bitcoins in 2020 and has not moved them since. Thus, this large stock may avoid the attention of major media. The British government mirrors China's strategy regarding bitcoin by holding its significant reserves in wait mode. Germany fully liquidated last year, bringing its significant reserves down to zero. This was done to cover the budget deficit rather than for ideological reasons against cryptocurrencies.
Ukraine conducted a similar complete liquidation of bitcoin to fund its current military campaign.
All mentioned government whales obtained their bitcoins exclusively through criminal confiscations, except for Ukraine, which accepted cross-border donations.
On the other hand, only two owners are actively trying to acquire it. Bhutan has attracted international attention due to its bitcoin achievements, but this is at the expense of mining, and it has sold nearly half of its reserves in recent months.
In other words, El Salvador is the only government in the world that is increasing its bitcoin reserves. It agreed to stop purchasing bitcoin to obtain a loan from the IMF, but acquisitions continue. This has caused some hostility in the country, but the IMF is satisfied with its behavior. This means that CoinGecko has taken a closer look at the impressive figures and found indicative conclusions. On paper, governments hold significant bitcoin reserves, but this trend is unexpectedly fragile.
Only seven governments held bitcoin last year, and two of them have lost it since then. Several political changes could completely alter this situation.#XRPETFs #AirdropFinderGuide #SaylorBTCPurchase #BinanceAlphaAlert #BinanceSquare $BTC