Crypto Market Jitters as US Government Moves $2 Billion Worth of Silk Road BTC
The US government has moved $2 billion worth of bitcoin, previously confiscated from the defunct dark web marketplace Silk Road. According to data from Arkham Intelligence, a wallet labeled as belonging to the US government transferred nearly 28,000 BTC to an unidentified address on Monday.
The transfer, which comes after a US appeals court finalized the forfeiture of Silk Road-related cryptocurrency late last year, was followed by a split of the funds into two separate addresses. Analysts suspect that a portion of the transferred bitcoin may have been deposited with an institutional custody service.
This movement has impacted the cryptocurrency market, with bitcoin prices falling below $67,000 following the transfer. The timing of the move is notable, coming just days after former President Donald Trump’s statement at the Bitcoin 2024 conference, where he proposed creating a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile” (and promised to commute the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht) if re-elected.
The US government’s crypto portfolio still holds over $12 billion in Bitcoin, according to Arkham Intelligence.
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