PANews reported on August 15 that according to CoinDesk, Arkham Intelligence's blockchain data showed that the U.S. government transferred 10,000 Silk Road-related seized bitcoins to Coinbase Prime on Wednesday (23:38 Beijing time). The crypto wallet that initiated the transfer received about $600 million worth of bitcoins from a wallet marked "U.S. Government: Silk Road Department of Justice Confiscated Funds" two weeks ago.
Deposits to exchanges usually indicate an intent to sell assets, but in this case, the transfer may have been for custody reasons. The U.S. Marshals Service, an agency under the U.S. Department of Justice, announced a partnership with Coinbase Prime last month to “safeguard and trade” large digital assets. It is unclear what exactly happens to the tokens once they enter the platform.
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the seizure of more than 50,000 BTC and the arrest of James Zhong, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud after being accused of manipulating the trading system of the darknet market Silk Road in 2012. According to court documents, the government's last confirmed sale of Silk Road assets was in March 2023, when 9,861 tokens were sold for $216 million. The government listed plans in the documents to sell the remaining assets in four batches that year, but there has been no follow-up communication about any sales since then. According to Arkham, wallets associated with the U.S. government currently hold $12 billion worth of BTC and small amounts of other seized cryptocurrencies.
