According to court documents filed on March 31, 2023 regarding James Zhong’s conviction for stealing over 50,000 bitcoins from the Silk Road market, the U.S. government ” . will be liquidated during this calendar year.”
U.S. government discloses strategy for selling confiscated bitcoins
The U.S. government, one of the largest holders of bitcoin,plans to sell41,490 BTCin 2023, according to court filings submitted in the James Zhong decision. The government made a historic bitcoin seizure in November 2022, forfeiting over 50,000BTCobtained from Zhong. Defendant pleaded guilty to “illegally obtaining more than 50,000 Bitcoins from the Silk Road dark web internet market in September 2012 and committing wire fraud.”
Bitcoin.com News reported six days ago that, according toDune Analytics dataand publicly available information, the US government holds 205,515BTC. In documents filed Friday, federal authorities plan to sell at least 41,490BTCworth 1.17 billion at today’s exchange rate.
Court documents state that “with respect to the 51,351.89785803 bitcoins confiscated in the Ulbricht case before Judge Schofield, the government has begun to liquidate (sell) them. “On March 14, 2023, the government sold 9,861.1707894BTC(out of 51,351.89785803BTC), totaling $215,738,154.98″.
According to on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, 9,861sales of BTCweredetected. or at least for the period prior to the sale, which was sent to the major exchanges.” Approximately 41,490.72of the bitcoin confiscated in the Ulbricht case remains BTC, which will be liquidated in four more installments this year.
Glassnode’s on-chain transfer account explains that the funds were likely sent to Coinbase. If the funds were sold on Coinbase, this would differ from the U.S. government’s previous auction style of selling seized crypto assets. If the government sells 41,490BTC, there are still 164,025
BTC, worth $4.65 billion left.
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