On June 26, the US government sent 3,940 Bitcoin to Coinbase Prime, Coinbase’s institutional trading platform. Blockchain analytics company Arkham Intelligence has flagged the project.
JUST ENTER: 🇺🇸 The US government is sending 3,940 #Bitcoin worth $241 million on Coinbase 👀 pic.twitter.com/m14HpdeJ0s
– Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 26, 2024
The transferred Bitcoin was originally taken from convicted drug trafficker Banmeet Singh in early 2024. Singh was arrested in London in 2019 on distribution charges and extradited to the US in 2023.
As part of his conviction, Singh forfeited more than 8,100 US securities, worth approximately $150 million at the time.
While the latest Bitcoin transfer of around 4,000 is huge, it represents a small fraction of the government’s total Bitcoin. The data shows that the US government currently holds approximately 214,000 Bitcoins worth more than $13 billion – making it the largest national Bitcoin holder in the world.
Most of the government’s Bitcoin comes from holdings related to the closed Silk Road black market. The famous Bitfinex hack of 2016 also contributed to the focus.
A transfer from Coinbase indicates that the government may want to sell some of its long-lived Bitcoin reserves. This adds to the fear of price impacts such as the recent government sale of the German government.
However, the amount moved so far is very small compared to the daily Bitcoin price. The US government still holds most of the seized Bitcoin, now worth billions more due to Bitcoin’s meteoric rise in price.
