News Is the US government preparing to crash bitcoin even more?
Published on 10.03.2023 at 20:15
Already in the grip of a significant drop since the start of the week, Bitcoin continues to build up concerns. And for good reason, a staggering amount of BTC has just been transferred to an address associated with the US government.
Nearly 50,000 bitcoins (BTC) in motion
On the night of March 8, several major movements alerted blockchain analysis companies. Indeed, nearly 50,000 bitcoins have been moved from their original addresses, which does not bode well…
They were originally taken from the infamous Internet drug dealing site: Silk Road, but in 2012 they were stolen by James Zhong, a dark web hacker. However, after years of investigation, the authorities managed to track down the hacker.
Thus, in November 2021, the authorities managed to get their hands on the cryptocurrency hidden in several devices hidden in the hacker’s villa. Oddly enough, a single-board computer containing a significant amount of bitcoin was found in a metal box of popcorn wrapped in blankets.
All bitcoins, which are considered the second largest confiscation of cryptocurrencies, were transferred to an address associated with the US Department of Justice.
After several years of storage, it seems that the US government has plans for these famous bitcoins, if recent transfers are to be believed.
On the way to the mass sale of bitcoin (BTC)?
Because the blockchain acts like a transparent ledger, the movement of these BTC is constantly tracked with a magnifying glass. What’s more, the government itself disclosed two public addresses where bitcoins were stored:
- bc1q5sngj24323nsrmxv99st02na6srekfctt30ch
- bc1q2raxkmk55p000ggfa8euzs9fzq7p4cx4twycx7
As a result, the analytics company Glassnode was able to see that these 49,861 bitcoins were moved from their original addresses. At current prices, the transfer is almost 1 billion euros.
Approximately $40,000 BTC from wallets linked to US law enforcement arrests are on the way.
Of these, most appear to be internal transfers (so far), however approximately $9,861 BTC seized from the Silk Road hacker has been sent to our Coinbase cluster. pic.twitter.com/afuEYcV18L
— glass node (@glassnode) March 7, 2023
While bitcoin is in full decline, this movement is unrelentingly worrying some experts in the crypto sector. Most believe that the government may soon shake up prices. Especially since we know that 9,825 bitcoins (182 million euros) were transferred to an address on the buy and resell platform Coinbase.
However, it is unlikely that these nearly 50,000 bitcoins will be completely sold in one transaction, as the rest has been transferred to US government wallets. Moreover, this confiscation is not the first, and the government usually holds auctions to sell its precious bitcoins. In the same registry, the French government orchestrated the Bitcoin sale as a result of a court arrest in March 2021. In total, 611 bitcoins were sold, worth 24 million euros.