The US sells its Bitcoin before Trump's inauguration?
Yesterday afternoon, there was exciting activity in the US government's Bitcoin wallet that suggests a Bitcoin sale.
According to the analysis firm Arkham Intelligence, the US sent 19,800 Bitcoin worth almost 2 billion US dollars to the custody service "Coinbase Prime Deposit".
10,000 of these ended up on the crypto exchange's "hot wallet", which suggests a sale.
Is the US now selling its Bitcoin before Donald Trump can transfer it to a strategic reserve as US president, as he had promised?
The USA postpones its Bitcoin
The wallets of various entities can be viewed on the Arkham Intelligence platform, an on-chain analysis company that has made a name for itself through the precise allocation of Bitcoin addresses.
Among other things, it was also possible to see in real time that the German state of Saxony "distressed sold" almost 50,000 Bitcoin in the summer - Blocktrainer.de reported.
The Bitcoin addresses that Arkham Intelligence attributes to the US government also show movements from time to time.
In August of this year, for example, 10,000 BTC flowed to "Coinbase Prime Deposit", i.e. to the same recipient who initially received the most recent transaction.
What is behind the transaction?
According to Arkham Intelligence, the Bitcoin transferred yesterday were confiscated coins belonging to James Zhong, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud last year.
Zhong had exploited the transaction system of the darknet marketplace Silk Road in 2012 to steal more than 50,000 BTC. The authorities found access to his Bitcoin during a house search in 2022.
Like Germany, the USA has already sold confiscated Bitcoin. There was a confirmed sale of James Zhong's Bitcoin in March last year. At that time, the authorities sold almost 10,000 BTC, as court documents revealed - Blocktrainer.de reported.
Postponement or sale?
At first glance, the 19,800 units sent out yesterday appear to be merely a shift in holdings of "Coinbase Prime Deposit".
In July of this year, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, entered into a partnership with Coinbase Prime to secure and trade digital assets.
However, a closer look reveals that 10,000 of the 19,800 Bitcoin flowed directly to the "Coinbase Prime Hot Wallet".
Arkham therefore classifies yesterday's transaction as an outflow of 10,000 Bitcoin from the US government's holdings.
Significance for the US Bitcoin reserve
The Bitcoin price reacted negatively to the US government's Bitcoin moves yesterday. The price fell from over USD 97,000 to under USD 95,000 in just two hours.
One obvious explanation for this is the anticipated selling pressure from the 10,000 Bitcoin worth almost one billion US dollars.
Even though MicroStrategy has bought up more than that alone in each of the past four weeks, supposed sales by governments have a negative signaling effect - especially at a time when a strategic US Bitcoin reserve is on the table and represents a primary price driver.
If the latest transaction for the "Coinbase Prime Hot Wallet" is indeed a sale, this would contradict the plans of the next US President Donald Trump.
At the Bitcoin conference in Nashville in July of this year, he promised not to sell the Bitcoin already confiscated in the USA and to treat it as a strategic asset.
However, the inauguration of the self-proclaimed "crypto president" is not until January 20, 2025, and it is also conceivable that third parties could still assert claims to the Bitcoin currently held by the USA.
According to Arkham Intelligence, the US currently still holds 198,109 Bitcoin worth around 19 billion US dollars - two years ago it was more than 240,000 units.
If Trump keeps his promise and no more Bitcoin is sold by the US government before his inauguration, he will probably be left with this amount for the strategic Bitcoin reserve.
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