According to researchers at analysis firm Dune, the US government’s entire supply of BTC is 205,515 BTC, representing more than 1% of the asset’s supply and making the US government “one of the top Bitcoin whales.” The US Department of Justice has confiscated around 215,000 BTC tied to criminal conduct since 2020, including 69,370 BTC linked to the darknet marketplace Silk Road, 94,643 BTC linked to the Bitfinex hacking pair, and 51,326 BTC linked to Silk Road hacker James Zhong.
Dune describes this as a “lower-bound estimate” based on publicly available data. PeckShield, an analytics business, had observed the flow of 48,998 BTC from US government accounts. 30,174 BTC and 8,999 BTC were transmitted to two new addresses, respectively, while another 9,825 BTC was paid to the US bitcoin exchange Coinbase.
The US Government had Become a Bitcoin Whale
The entire quantity of the first cryptocurrency issued by US authorities is 205,515 BTC (at the time of writing, $5.6 billion) – this is more than 1% of the totalcoin supply in the market. According to Dune experts, the US government is “one of the largest bitcoin whales.”
Since 2020, the US Department of Justice has seized around 215,000 Bitcoin linked to illegal conduct. Among them are 69,370 BTC from the Silk Road darknet marketplace (November 2020), 94,643 BTC from the Bitfinex hacking duo (January 2022), and 51,326 BTC from Silk Road hacker James June (November 2022).
PeckShield, an analytics firm, previously observed the flow of 48,998 BTC from US government accounts. 30,174 BTC and 8999 BTC were transmitted to two new addresses, while another 9825 BTC was paid to the US bitcoin exchange Coinbase. In March 2023, German and American officials, with the help of other nations, took down the ChipMixer cryptocurrency mixer’s infrastructure and confiscated 1909.4 BTC.
