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The US government now has 214,000 . More than bitcoin (btc), which is over 1% of the total limited bitcoin supply. The new milestone was reached after a government Announcement On Monday it said it had confiscated more than 50,000 BTC linked to the illegal online marketplace Silk Road.
According to Monday’s announcement by the US Department of Justice, 50,676.17 BTC were confiscated from the Silk Road thief. The latest addition to the government’s already massive bitcoin stash, bringing it above 200k BTC, hitting 214,682 BTC to be exact.
At the current exchange rate of $16,800 per coin, the government’s bitcoin stash now stands at a staggering $3.6bn. This makes the US government’s stash even bigger than the sum. Michael SaylorThe company of MicroStrategy, which Holds 130,000 BTC According to its latest filing.
A large portion of the government’s current bitcoin holdings come from three major seizures over the past two years. For the first time, in November of 2020, the government confiscated 69,370.22 BTC from a person associated with the Silk Road, known simply as “Personal X”. After the seizure, the US government was declared the first Top bitcoin whales in the world,
The second major seizure occurred in February of this year, when Onchain analysts noticed that 94,636 BTC obtained from the 2016 Bitfinex hack were consolidated into a single address. The money was later confiscated by the government, and arrested two suspects,
With the most recent Silk Road-related seizure announced this week, the government now holds more than 1% of the total bitcoin supply of 21 million coins.
But although the risk exists that the government may decide to “dump” its massive share of the market, it is likely that how the government will deal with it.
Historically, bitcoins confiscated by the US Department of Justice have been auctioned off to investors, without the auction itself creating much of an impact on the market. One thing to note, however, is that the government hasn’t held a major bitcoin auction for some time, and so it’s unclear when the next one will take place.
Maybe the government, like the rest of us, is waiting for better prices before deciding to sell?
