A cryptocurrency wallet, identified as belonging to the United States Department of Justice, mobilized 30,174 bitcoins (BTC) equivalent to almost $2 billion, which were seized in the Silk Road case.
According to data from the Arkham Intelligence explorer, the movement of bitcoins was made during the morning of April 2 and the funds were sent to a wallet belonging to the Coinbase Prime exchange. The movement began with a small test transaction through which just 0.001 BTC was sent, and then another movement was executed to send more than 30,000 BTC.
The $2 billion in bitcoins that were moved are linked to funds that the Department of Justice has been confiscating since 2020 from the now-defunct Silk Road dark web market.
In that sense, today's transaction comes months after a US appeals court formalized the seizure of 69,370 bitcoins connected to Silk Road. It was the result of a crusade undertaken by the United States to seize the BTC coming from this marketplace , a site that was closed by the FBI in 2013.
Now, everything seems to indicate that the government is preparing to sell the digital currencies in its possession on the market. The last sale confirmed by the government was in late 2022. It was made shortly after approximately 50,000 bitcoins related to the case were added to the seizure.
The value of bitcoins in North American currencies has appreciated substantially in the last four years. According to a statement from the Department of Justice, the bitcoins were seized on November 9, 2020, at which time the price of bitcoin was around $15,000. That means that, with the rise of bitcoin, the profits obtained exceed 300%.
Due to the seizure carried out by the Silk Road case, along with other seizures, the United States became a real whale. The country holds more BTC than MicroStrategy, which is one of the companies that has invested the most in Satoshi Nakamoto's currency.
All movements of bitcoins linked to Silk Road are constantly monitored. This, considering that a hypothetical liquidation of BTC in government custody could translate into a severe impact on the market and the price of cryptocurrencies.
