US authorities plan to sell $ 118 million worth of criminally obtained bitcoins

The US government, which is one of the largest cryptocurrency holders in the world, will sell bitcoins confiscated from the Silk Road darknet marketplace. According to the plan, 2,934 BTC worth $ 118 million will be sold.

According to experts, this event should not be considered a cause for concern. As Stephen Lyubka, managing director of Swan Bitcoin, explained, the sale will be «negligible» compared to the outflow of funds from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust over the past week.

Peanuts, we have been eating GBTC sales 4x this for breakfast https://t.co/OHM2Lb1Fcf

— Steven Lubka ☀️ (@DzambhalaHODL) January 25, 2024

«We ate GBTC sales for breakfast, which are 4 times higher than this figure ,» Lyubka wrote ironically. Since GBTC became a spot exchange-traded fund on January 11, 106,575 BTC have been sold for $ 4.2 billion, with the last outflow on January 24 amounting to 10,871 BTC.

According to cryptocurrency company 21.co, the planned sale by the US government is only 1.5% of the total 194,188 BTC or $ 7.7 billion it holds after three criminal seizures. Overall, this is still less than 1% of the total amount of bitcoin in circulation.

The largest bitcoin seizures by the US government:

• 94,643 BTC — in January 2022 as a result of the Bitfinex hack in 2016.
• 69,369 BTC — in November 2020 from Silk Road.
• 51,326 BTC — from Silk Road hacker James Jung.

It is known that the US government sometimes puts bitcoin up for auction, the most famous of which was the purchase in 2014 by venture capitalist Tim Draper, who bought almost 30,000 BTC at auction.

As a reminder, in July, the U.S. authorities moved bitcoins previously confiscated from Silk Road. In several transactions, government-affiliated wallets transferred more than 9,824 BTC. Also, in March 2023, the U.S. government sold 9861 BTC for $ 215 million. This was only a fraction of the confiscated assets that remained at that time. The authorities planned to liquidate the cryptocurrency in four batches during the year.