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Silk Road–Linked Bitcoin Worth $300M Moved by U.S. Government: On-Chain Data

The U.S. government previously sold 9,861 bitcoin for $216 million in March.

By Oliver Knight|Edited by Nelson Wang
Updated Jul 13, 2023, 9:46 p.m. Published Jul 12, 2023, 2:28 p.m.
U.S. government moves bitcoin (Blockchain.com)
U.S. government moves bitcoin (Blockchain.com)

Two wallets tagged as belonging to the U.S. government and linked to the Silk Road seizure of crypto have moved over $300 million worth of bitcoin (BTC) in three separate transactions on Wednesday morning, on-chain data shows.

The price of bitcoin fell by 0.8% to $30,480 after the transaction was sent; it has since recovered to $30,660 as of press time.

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Bitcoin's block explorer shows that the government-controlled wallets sent a total of 9,825 bitcoin ($301 million).

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The same wallet transferred over $1 billion in bitcoin in March, a move that caused a slump across all major cryptocurrencies.

The U.S. government previously sold 9,861 bitcoin for $216 million in March. The sale came after the government seized 50,000 bitcoin linked to the Silk Road marketplace in November.

Silk RoadBitcoinUS GovernmentOn-chain Data
Oliver Knight

Oliver Knight is the co-leader of CoinDesk data tokens and data team. Before joining CoinDesk in 2022 Oliver spent three years as the chief reporter at Coin Rivet. He first started investing in bitcoin in 2013 and spent a period of his career working at a market making firm in the UK. He does not currently have any crypto holdings.

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