US government has received authorization to sell 69,370 Bitcoin

Last night, a court document caused a stir in the Bitcoin community. It shows that the US government has been given the green light to sell 69,370 confiscated Bitcoin. The medium DB News previously reported that it had also received the information from an official source.

The Bitcoin was confiscated in the context of the illegal Silk Road marketplace. The FBI shut down the darknet website, where users could buy drugs, weapons and other items with Bitcoin, in 2013.

The company "Battle Born Investments" had demanded that the sale of the coins be postponed because it allegedly owned the rights to them. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has now rejected this claim.

The news that a sale of several thousand Bitcoin could be imminent put further pressure on the price of the most important cryptocurrency, which has been in correction mode since Tuesday of this week. One Bitcoin currently costs around 93,000 US dollars.

The approval of a sale of the approximately 69,370 Bitcoin worth more than 6 billion US dollars does not necessarily mean that they will change hands immediately - even though the DOJ is said to be pushing for this.

Officials from the Department of Justice (DOJ) reportedly pointed to Bitcoin's volatility in their efforts to get approval for the sale to DB News.

Asset forfeiture involves several administrative steps as well as appeal periods, the medium decrypt explains in this context.

Since December 30, 2024, the date on which the court document is dated, no Bitcoin has flowed from the addresses that the analysis firm Arkham Intelligence attributes to the US government. According to Arkham, there are currently 198,109 BTC in the possession of the United States.

In the past, the US government has occasionally transferred Bitcoin to Coinbase Prime. However, it was usually unclear whether these were sales or simply a shift in holdings. The US government has entered into a partnership with the company for the safekeeping of digital assets.

There are still eleven days to go until Donald Trump's inauguration. The US President-elect promised not to sell any more Bitcoin with the US and to transfer the confiscated coins to a strategic reserve - Blocktrainer.de reported. It can be assumed that the Bitcoin held by the US government until then will remain there - at least those for which third parties cannot make any claims.

Further details on the presumably imminent sale remain to be seen. When the German state of Saxony sold around 50,000 Bitcoin over a few days last summer, the Bitcoin price weakened - Blocktrainer.de reported. Something similar could happen again if the United States actually sells the 69,370 Bitcoin, particularly because of the signaling effect.

However, it will be particularly exciting to see how many Bitcoin Donald Trump will have left as president for the announced strategic stockpile. Some in the community are calling for him to buy back the confiscated Bitcoin that left US possession before he took office.