The U.S. government has deposited 3,940 Bitcoins to the Coinbase exchange, which is about $241 million, in line with the current BTC price. On-chain analytical firms Arkham Intelligence and Lookonchain have confirmed the move and provided the address allegedly linked to U.S. officials.
Related sources affirm that the amount of Bitcoin (BTC) recently sold is linked to the infamous dark web market Silk Road. So far, what pushed the U.S. watchdog to a massive sell-off remains unclear, which could negatively impact the crypto market, already suffering previous lows.
The wallet moved Bitcoins in three transactions
Coinbase received the BTC collection in three transactions for the planned sale. Government-linked wallet address first sent 0.001 BTC, amounting to $65, to confirm the Coinbase Prime deposit address. It then transferred 1,999 (worth $130 million), followed by the move of the remaining 28,176 BTC. This count of BTC was worth $150 million at the time of seizure, according to the authorities.
These BTC were seized by the U.S. authorities from an Indian dark web operator, Banmeet Singh. The defender, arrested in the U.K. last year, pleaded guilty to his crimes in 2024 in a federal court in Ohio. Singh transferred 8,100 Bitcoin in total, per the U.S. Department of Justice press release.
However, Lookonchain’s data shows that the U.S. government still holds a whopping 213,546 BTC, which equates to $13.07 billion. It’s not the first time the government appears to have sold the seized crypto assets. Authorities keep auctioning and selling crypto and traditional assets they confiscate during criminal investigations.
For instance, the U.S. Marshals Service sold 30,000 Bitcoins to billionaire Tim Draper in 2014, which it seized from the dark web market Silk Road. In April 2024, the wallet reportedly moved 30,175 BTC to Coinbase, worth $2 billion.
Nevertheless, the news of the U.S. moving around 4,000 BTC comes just hours after the blockchain analytical platform discovered that Germany moved 750 Bitcoin. Germany secures fourth position as the sovereign holder of BTC in the world. The U.S., China, and Britain come before Germany, holding 46,359.
