Silk Road handed over by US government
The U.S. government has successfully transferred previously seized Bitcoins from the infamous darknet platform, Silk Road, to the popular cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase. According to Blockchair, a wallet belonging to the U.S. government conducted the transfer on April 2, moving a total of 30,175 Bitcoins. With the current price of BTC at approximately $65,000, the cost of the transfer amounts to a staggering $2 billion.
A closer look at the transaction reveals that, in addition to the main transfer, a smaller amount of 0.001 BTC worth $69 was also sent to a Coinbase deposit address. This smaller transfer appears to be a test transaction.
This recent transfer follows a previous sale made by the government back in March 2023. At that time, the government unloaded 9,861 coins, which were valued at $216 million. These coins were among the approximately 50,000 BTC that had been seized in late 2022 and were associated with the Silk Road website.
In January 2024, government officials announced their intention to sell a portion of the cryptocurrency linked to Silk Road. The statement mentioned that there were 2,934 BTC available for sale.
In late February, the U.S. government transferred a significant amount of seized Bitcoins from the hacked crypto exchange, Bitfinex. A total of 15,085 Bitcoins, valued at around $947 million, were moved to unknown addresses. The transfer was conducted in multiple stages, starting with a test transfer of one BTC, followed by two larger transfers of 2,817 BTC and 12,267 BTC, worth $172.7 million and $748.5 million, respectively.
Additionally, it has been reported that another U.S. government wallet holds approximately 94,600 Bitfinex bitcoins that were confiscated from hackers.
CryptoQuant analysts estimate that the U.S. government currently holds 210,392 BTC, which is valued at $14.4 billion. This makes the government one of the largest holders of Bitcoin.
The U.S. Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, and other agencies have not sold a single bitcoin since July 2023. As a result, the government’s unrealized profits from its Bitcoin holdings have increased by 2.4 times since then.
In light of these developments, the U.S. government has become the largest Bitcoin whale, with a total of $5 billion worth of BTC in its possession. This highlights the government’s growing interest and involvement in the cryptocurrency market.
