- Pending confirmation, this transfer could surpass the government’s last verified Bitcoin sale of $216 million in March 2023.
- The U.S. has become a major Bitcoin holder following seizures, notably from the Silk Road shutdown by the FBI in 2013.
The United States government has recently moved 30,174 Bitcoins, valued at $2.1 billion, from assets confiscated from the Silk Road to Coinbase. This operation was spotted on a Tuesday morning, with a wallet identified as part of the U.S. government’s holdings making the transfer.
30.1K BTC ($2.1B) of Silk Road hack funds controlled by US government is on the move right now.
0.001 BTC ($69) transferred to a Coinbase deposit address so it’s a test transfer possibly.
txn hash
9c3af4b48e66565f1da1da8278036fa1dbb09f2beaaca99c3504475390ba4590Coinbase…
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) April 2, 2024
Confirmation of this Bitcoin transfer by the U.S. authorities is still pending. The government’s last verified sale happened in March 2023, where it disposed of 9,861 coins for a sum of $216 million. If validated, this recent sale surpasses the volume of the previous one.
Also read: Coinbase Outages Prompt Infrastructure Overhaul: CEO Armstrong Announces Capital Injection
In late 2022, approximately 50,000 bitcoins were seized by the U.S. government in relation to the Silk Road website, a notorious digital black market known for money laundering and illegal drug transactions using Bitcoin.
The latest movement of Bitcoin was directed to a wallet not immediately identified, yet Arkham Intelligence has associated this wallet with the cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase. The formal confirmation of this transaction by the U.S. government is awaited.
This transaction follows months after a U.S. appeals court finalized the seizure of 69,370 bitcoins linked to Silk Road, marking a concerted effort by the United States to seize BTC from this marketplace, which was shut down by the FBI in 2013.
You can read: SEC’s Blow: Coinbase Wallet’s Win Strengthens DeFi Landscape
Now, it appears the government is gearing up to sell the digital currencies it possesses. The government’s status as a major Bitcoin holder turns it into a significant player in the cryptocurrency market. The movements of bitcoins connected to Silk Road are closely monitored, considering their potential to significantly impact the market and cryptocurrency prices.
After news of the transaction broke, Bitcoin’s price, which had been declining on April 2nd, dipped further, falling below $65,000. However, in the last hours, Bitcoin has seen a slight recovery, trading at $65,810, marking a 4.2% decrease over the last 24 hours.
