- Glassnode and PeckShield reported that 49K bitcoins held by the US government have moved.
- $200 million worth of these BTC was transferred to Coinbase.
- People are now speculating as to whether the US government actually sold or staked BTC on Coinbase.
On-chain data analytics platforms Glassnode and PeckShield alerted the crypto market, saying that wallets held by the US government’s law enforcement agencies have transferred around 49,000 bitcoins (BTC) across various wallets.
Based on the current price of BTC, this amounts to $1 billion.
Here’s the Easter egg: out of these bitcoins that moved from wallet to wallet, around 9,861 BTC were transferred to Coinbase. Glassnode provided the link to the transaction in question here. And as if this was not weird enough, these bitcoins were retrieved by the US from ill-gotten proceeds from the notorious dark web marketplace named Silk Road.
People are now speculating as to why the US government would actually transfer bitcoins to a Coinbase wallet. Some made allegations such as the US is selling bitcoins on Coinbase, while others even came up with hilarious takes.
On a serious note, the bitcoins in question are not owned by the US government. Specifically, these were only seized by the government from crime-related activities on Silk Road.
Now, people are asking whether this move by the government is constitutional since these bitcoins were not the US’ own to begin with.
Government regulators have yet to make a statement related to this unannounced move.
