Arkham Intelligence Uncovers 100 Wallets Tied to Movie2K Piracy Operation

Blockchain sleuths strike gold—tracking illicit funds through transparent ledgers never gets old.

The Smoking Gun

Arkham's forensic team pinpointed exactly 100 digital wallets funneling proceeds from the notorious Movie2K piracy platform. Each address now sits exposed on-chain—a digital paper trail even Hollywood scriptwriters couldn't dream up.

Following the Crypto

Their investigation traces how profits moved across decentralized exchanges and mixing services. Transaction patterns reveal sophisticated laundering techniques—though not sophisticated enough to evade blockchain analysis.

Transparency's Double-Edged Sword

While piracy revenues historically vanished into offshore accounts, crypto's public ledger leaves perpetrators nowhere to hide. Unless they're hedge funds—then we call it 'innovative treasury management'.

The takeaway? Crime pays until your wallet gets doxxed.

For now, there is no legal recourse to claim the BTC. Earlier, the founders of the Movie2K piracy site voluntarily transferred 48,898 BTC to new wallets controlled by law enforcement. The German government sold due to the potential BTC volatility and the risk of losses, skipping one of the biggest BTC bull markets in late 2024 and 2025.

Arkham identifies new BTC wallets linked to Movie2K

Movie2K already surrendered nearly 50K BTC to the German government in early 2024. Later that year, the government sold all its BTC, tanking the price to below $50,000. The German government sold at around $57,500 in the summer of 2024, shedding all holdings for around $2.89B. In total, the government liquidated 54,000 BTC from several seized wallets. The newly discovered wallets arrived a little over a year since the country sold its holdings within days.

The German government became notorious for selling at a much lower price and skipping billions in earnings. The sales happened just before Germany ushered in a new government that made crypto-friendly statements. 

Two years after the latest transfers, the Movie2K wallet cluster still contained $4.99B in value, spread across multiple connected wallets. Arkham tracked down the cluster based on connections to the German Government wallets. 

According to Arkham, the cluster contains 100 connected wallets, which have not moved their holdings since 2019. Movie2K was active until 2013, and the BTC was acquired as a way to park the proceeds from running the piracy site. Over time, the relatively small payments were turned into a significant treasury. For now, it remains uncertain if all wallets are accessible and if the funds can also be claimed.

Can Germany build a strategic BTC reserve?

As of July 2024, the case against Movie2K was still under investigation, with authorities giving no further details. The first tranche of BTC was voluntarily sent by the two suspects, a German male, 40, and a Polish male, 37, at the time of the arrests.

All involved persons from Movie2K received suspended sentences, but have not touched the BTC even after their trial. None of the sentences targeted crypto ownership as such, and were applied for copyright infringement and money laundering.

The case is still not closed, and the new information may mean the Dresden prosecutor’s office is facing another dilemma about becoming a large-scale BTC holder. The case was assisted by the US FBI, as well as by a Munich-based IT company. 

Governments have remained some of the biggest passive holders of BTC, with a reported 525,364 BTC in total. With the latest inflows, Germany WOULD line up just behind Ukraine with replenished BTC holdings. 

If transferred, the 45,000 BTC could turn into one potential source of selling. However, the market has managed to absorb the tokens, and Germany’s MOVE did not have lasting damage. Instead, it made the BTC market more confident after easily absorbing even large-scale whale holdings.

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