German police accidentally seized such a large amount of bitcoin while investigating an Internet copyright infringement case.

The two unnamed suspects, a 40-year-old German and a 37-year-old Polish national, ran a pirated movie and television website called movie2k.to from autumn 2008 to 2013, illegally sharing more than 880,000 movies and TV episodes before it was shut down in May 2013.

Based on the latest unit price of $43,000, the market value of 50,000 bitcoins is nearly $2.15 billion, or 2 billion euros, or 15.3 billion yuan.

According to the suspects, the bitcoins involved in the case were purchased using the income (mainly advertising) of pirated movie websites at that time.

Of course, the discussion of value cannot be separated from the context of The Times. Bitcoin's genesis block was born on January 3, 2009, and according to existing historical records, Bitcoin was worth about $0.1 or less in the first two years of its existence. It wasn't until February 2011 that the price of this alternative asset hit $1 for the first time. After the first "halving" in 2012, by the time the aforementioned pirate movie site shut down, the price of Bitcoin was probably around $10.

Somewhat unimaginably, the two men's coins have been in a state of sleep, with little sign of operation, as the price of bitcoin has soared to as high as $60,000 over the past decade.

Because the Bitcoin ledger is open to the entire Internet, the transfer of bitcoins by German prosecutors was previously monitored in mid-January. According to blockchain data agency Arkham, the bitcoins were only moved once in 2019 before being transferred this month, and have been sitting quietly in wallets since 2013.

Arkham concluded that in the early January transaction, bitcoins from 49 addresses were eventually transferred to five new addresses, each of which now holds between 8,000 and 12,000 bitcoins.

Today's announcement also mentions that these "new addresses" are the official cryptocurrency wallets of the German Federal Criminal Police. And the German judiciary hasn't figured out what to do with the bitcoins. Since the US government seized and sold a large number of Bitcoin in the past, the market has caused obvious shocks, and the industry is also sensitive to such news.

The announcement also said that the case is still under investigation, no formal lawsuit has been filed, and no further information will be provided to the public until the investigation is completed. Therefore, the reason why these two people have "covered Bitcoin for ten years" may have to wait for quite a long time to uncover.