According to on-chain data, as of press time, one of the Bitcoin transactions has not yet been completed.
The 9,825 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $302 million seized by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) from the shuttered darknet marketplace Silk Road were moved to a new address earlier today (July 12), on-chain data shows.
The OKLink dashboard shows that BTC was sent to the new address in two transactions, one of which is still pending as of press time.
Earlier this year, the U.S. government sold 9,800 BTC for $215.7 million through the Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange. At the time, authorities revealed plans to liquidate a balance of more than 40,000 Bitcoins in four batches this year.
Silk Road Bitcoin refers to the more than 50,000 Bitcoins seized from Mr. Zhong by the U.S. government in 2022. Mr. Zhong hacked into the dark web market to steal funds in 2012, and it took the government nearly a decade to recover the stolen funds.
Bitcoin price unchanged
Bitcoin’s price remains unchanged despite speculation surrounding the U.S. move. The flagship digital asset is trading at $30,713, up 0.18% over the past 24 hours.
Over the past month, Bitcoin prices have mostly traded above $30,000 as bullish sentiment returned to the market after several leading traditional financial institutions, including BlackRock and Fidelity, filed for spot BTC ETFs in June.
During this period, several market observers, including Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss, said that a major accumulation of BTC had begun.
ByteTree data shared by cryptocurrency analyst Miles Deutscher further showed that the amount of Bitcoin held by the fund grew rapidly to nearly 850,000 BTC in June.
