{"id":55618,"date":"2023-07-12T22:06:41","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T22:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=55618"},"modified":"2023-07-12T22:06:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T22:06:41","slug":"us-government-moves-nearly-10k-bitcoin-worth-over-300m-related-to-silk-road-seizure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=55618","title":{"rendered":"US government moves nearly 10K Bitcoin worth over $300M related to Silk Road seizure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-v-b01e4970=\"\">\n<p>A cryptocurrency wallet associated with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ)\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.blockchain.com\/explorer\/addresses\/btc\/bc1qmxjefnuy06v345v6vhwpwt05dztztmx4g3y7wp\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">moved<\/a> approximately 9,825.25 Bitcoin worth around $299 million in a series of transactions on July 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unclear at this time whether the transactions, which appear to have ultimately propagated to at least 101 new wallets, were sent to exchange addresses for sale or remain in the custody of the Justice Department.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.cointelegraph.com\/uploads\/2023-07\/a9faa977-046c-40a6-bc5c-706ebadd8ffc.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" \/><figcaption style=\"text-align: center\"><em>DOJ Bitcoin transactions. Source: Screenshot via Blockchain.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Initially, approximately 9,825 of the Bitcoin (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/bitcoin-price\" rel=\"noopener\">BTC<\/a>) associated with the Silk Road seizure moved in a pair of transactions sent to three addresses at around 1:00 pm UTC. The bulk of the coins \u2014 8,200 BTC worth nearly $250 million as of the time of this article\u2019s publication \u2014 were sent to a single address, which subsequently <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.blockchain.com\/explorer\/addresses\/BTC\/361yogPsasxJz6JAaFskmWZes14Gs38ikj\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">split<\/a> the total amount across 101 separate addresses a little over an hour later:<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.cointelegraph.com\/uploads\/2023-07\/3813ac2e-63cc-401f-b8d7-dfa18e975bfe.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" \/><figcaption style=\"text-align: center\"><em>An 8,200 BTC transaction from a wallet that received coins originating from the DOJ. Source: Screenshot via Blockchain.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The U.S. government previously revealed that it had plans to offload the rest of its BTC from the Silk Road seizure over the course of four batch transactions throughout the remainder of the calendar year. <\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Related: <\/em><\/strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/us-government-plans-to-sell-41k-bitcoin-connected-to-silk-road\" data-amp=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph-com.cdn.ampproject.org\/c\/s\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/us-government-plans-to-sell-41k-bitcoin-connected-to-silk-road\/amp\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><em>US government plans to sell 41K Bitcoin connected to Silk Road<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to current on-chain data, it\u2019s possible the U.S. government could be <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.blockchain.com\/explorer\/addresses\/btc\/367YoRXht9x28BupqPaVnYfoM1xQP6XG4k\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">testing<\/a> liquidity strategies. One account associated with batch transactions conducted on March 7, 2023 appears to have <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/bitinfocharts.com\/bitcoin\/address\/bc1qf2yvj48mzkj7uf8lc2a9sa7w983qe256l5c8fs\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">profited<\/a> in the amount of $237,934,919 on 30,174.7 in BTC holdings not currently associated with the July 12 batch of transactions.<\/p>\n<p>However, another account that received 9,825.6 BTC from the DOJ during the March 7 batch distributed those coins among 101 accounts. The same account later joined 599 other accounts to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.blockchain.com\/explorer\/addresses\/btc\/bc1qkxtk5z6f3f9tvat8c4dwtdqgpxwmxtrvjxam5w\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">send<\/a> a total of approximately 0.1 BTC (about $3,032 as of the time of this article\u2019s publication) to yet another account, which then spread its holdings of approximately 51 BTC across 37 addresses. <\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.cointelegraph.com\/uploads\/2023-07\/adc5b3ed-7f31-4fd2-801c-83edcb26099c.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" \/><figcaption style=\"text-align: center\"><em>An approximately 51 BTC transaction from a wallet that received coins originating from the DOJ. Source: Screenshot via Blockchain.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>While speculation abounds about the exact nature of the transactions, which now span some 800-plus wallet addresses, the sheer number of transactions and associated wallets makes tracking exactly what the U.S. government is doing with each coin an increasingly challenging endeavor.<\/p>\n<p>This lack of certainty has led some members of the crypto community to fear that BTC is being \u201cnuked\u201d or that the U.S. government\u2019s wake-inducing coin movement will ripple throughout the cryptocurrency economy and cause investors to abandon what some see as the early stages of a bull run. <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Bullish CPI and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener\">#bitcoin<\/a> nuked<\/p>\n<p>Not a good sign<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Algod (@AlgodTrading) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AlgodTrading\/status\/1679177143757029397?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener\">July 12, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Other enthusiasts have <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/itsLilCam\/status\/1679177926078611457\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">dismissed<\/a> such commentary as unnecessary fear, uncertainty and doubt based on the lack of tidal movement \u2014 more than six hours after the transactions were clocked, BTC has seen less than 1% of market movement. <\/p>\n<p><em><strong><em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/mint.cointelegraph.com\/?url=https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/us-government-doj-moves-nearly-10k-bitcoin-related-to-silk-road-seizure&amp;utm_source=cointelegraph_com&amp;utm_medium=appendix&amp;utm_campaign=articles\" data-amp=\"https:\/\/mint-cointelegraph-com.cdn.ampproject.org\/c\/s\/mint.cointelegraph.com\/?url=https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/us-government-doj-moves-nearly-10k-bitcoin-related-to-silk-road-seizure&amp;utm_source=cointelegraph_com&amp;utm_medium=appendix&amp;utm_campaign=articles\/amp\" rel=\"noopener\">Collect this article as an NFT<\/a><\/em><\/strong><em> to preserve this moment in history and show your support for independent journalism in the crypto space.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/us-government-doj-moves-nearly-10k-bitcoin-related-to-silk-road-seizure\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A cryptocurrency wallet associated with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ)\u00a0moved approximately 9,825.25 Bitcoin worth around $299 million in a series of transactions on July 12.\u00a0 It\u2019s unclear at this time whether the transactions, which appear to have ultimately propagated to at least 101 new wallets, were sent to exchange addresses for sale or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[38],"tags":[4382,2647,50,31,247,3876,1515,5200,1514,341],"class_list":["post-55618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blockchain","tag-10k","tag-300m","tag-bitcoin","tag-government","tag-moves","tag-related","tag-road","tag-seizure","tag-silk","tag-worth"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1200_aHR0cHM6Ly9zMy5jb2ludGVsZWdyYXBoLmNvbS91cGxvYWRzLzIwMjMtMDcvNmM3NjM4ZTktNjVjMC00NzlhLWFhYTktOGFjNTgxNzdmYTUxLmpwZw.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55620,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55618\/revisions\/55620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}