Key Takeaways
- Wallets managed by the U.S. Marshals, a DOJ agency, moved 833.6 BTC worth $71M, their first bitcoin transfer since Aug. 26.
- Coinbase Prime entered the picture as government wallets tested BTC transfers tied to 2 major cases.
- Uncle Sam still sits on a hefty 323,693.83 BTC stash valued at roughly $27.72 billion.
Government Wallets Stir With Bitcoin, BNB Transfers
Roughly around 11 a.m. Eastern time, the U.S. government shifted a large sum of bitcoin, alongside $31.63 million worth of BNB, from forfeited FTX wallets. Sani, the onchain analyst and operator of timechainindex.com, was the first to discover the movements. He noted that the federal authorities shifted 0.00115539 BTC to Coinbase Prime in a test transfer and moved 264.86266831 BTC to a new wallet.
“Most likely a test transaction before sending all the remaining coins,” Sani wrote on X. This specific stash was coins associated with the 2016 Bitfinex hack, which saw 120,000 BTC stolen from the exchange. The government managed to catch the hackers, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, and confiscate around 94,636 BTC from the thieves years later.
Following that transfer, the U.S. government’s wallets moved a test transfer of 0.127 BNB from the FTX bankruptcy and then shifted a much larger 40,285.07 BNB. That move was then followed by a 568 BTC transaction with coins that derived from the Potapenko-Turogin fraud case. That case in particular involved two men who ran a fake cloud mining operation called Hashflare. The men, Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin, sold contracts of hashrate from data centers that held no real machines.
Coinbase Prime Takes Center Stage in Government Transfers
Tuesday may have been a day for cleaning out some forfeited digital assets, though why the government chose this particular moment to move them remains anyone’s guess. Arkham Intelligence data and Sani’s account of the situation show that the sender chose to move the funds to Coinbase Prime. Coinbase has had a relationship with the U.S. government when it comes to managing digital assets.
The exchange provides custody and advanced trading services to the U.S. Marshals Service. In the old days, the government used to rely on auctions to sell bitcoin caches that were seized, but these days, law enforcement authorities work directly with Coinbase to handle its “Class 1” digital assets. After the 833.6 BTC moved on Tuesday, the U.S. government still holds 323,693.83 BTC worth $27.72 billion.
