> All that matters is if there if fresh money coming in

Every time a trade happens, someone is "coming in" and someone is "getting out". The more trades there are, the more opportunities there are for anyone (including the German government) to take the other side.

> after the recent lack of price action from the ETFs, it doesn't suggest the existing volume is legitimate.

This is by no means the only reasonable interpretation of the price action surrounding the ETF approval. It's totally plausible that the lack of price action just means that the amount of money "selling the news" of the final ETF approval is around the same as the amount of money "buying the rumor" of a big influx of cash.

> Every time a trade happens, someone is "coming in" and someone is "getting out"

This is not true in a wash trade which is what I have repeatedly been saying.

That volume is not wash trading (i.e. "fake volume" in my words). There is fake volume in crypto but that happens largely on the smaller, less established exchanges that are trying to make a name for themselves. You can see this from the "**" markings on CoinMarketCap that indicate that they don't include that volume in their total volume calculations. I did not include any **'d volume in my above calculations.

But don't take it from me. This comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39200966 elsewhere in this thread agrees that you can move that amount of Bitcoin in a small number of weeks.

We have no idea how much wash trading is happening. I know for a fact that it is not all wash trading but it's also not 0% wash trading. Both extremes are equally absurd to claim.