As of March 25, 2023, the U.S. government held 205,515 bitcoins worth $5.6 billion, which is approximately 1.06% of the circulating supply, according to current statistics. The cache of bitcoins is a result of three forfeitures that began in 2020. Glassnode’s on-chain data reveals that on March 9, about 9,860 bitcoins worth roughly $269 million were sent to a Coinbase address.
Uncle Sam’s Crypto Stash: How the U.S. Government Became a Top Bitcoin Holder
The U.S. government currently holds 205,515 bitcoins valued at $5.66 billion based on today’s exchange rates. The bitcoins were confiscated in three cases, including the Silk Road bitcoin
seizure in November 2020, the 2022
Bitfinex hack confiscation, and the
seizure of bitcoins from James Zhong last year. Of the total, 69,369
BTC was seized from “Individual X,” 94,643
BTC was taken from
Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife
Heather Morgan, and 51,326
BTC was seized from Zhong in November 2022.
According to a
report from Glassnode on March 9, 2023, some of these bitcoins have moved, reducing the total from 215,338 to 205,515
BTC. “Approximately [40,000 bitcoins] from wallets associated with U.S. Government law enforcement seizures are on the move,” Glassnode reported. “The majority of these appear to be internal transfers (so far). However, around 9,861 [bitcoin] seized from the Silk Road hacker have been sent to our Coinbase cluster.”
The current estimate of 205,515 bitcoins (
BTC) comes from a Dune Analytics
set of metrics created by 21Shares, an exchange-traded product provider. The data shows the U.S. government’s addresses and transaction history. Of the current seized cache of
BTC, 44% came from the Bitfinex forfeiture, 32.2% from “Individual X,” and 23.8% from the Zhong seizure. Additionally, the U.S. government may possess more bitcoins than what is tallied up in 21Shares’ data set. The summary notes that the 205,515
BTC is “a lower-bound estimation” based solely on “publicly available information.”
The U.S. government’s seized 205,515 bitcoins constitute a considerable stash compared to that of other large holders. Although smaller than Grayscale’s cache of 643,572
BTC, it surpasses Microstrategy’s stash of 132,500
BTC. Furthermore, compared to the whales in the
bitcoin-rich list of addresses, it would be the second largest (if consolidated), falling behind Binance’s bitcoin cold wallet, which holds 248,597
BTC at the time of writing.
The federal government’s bitcoin stash is also larger than the roughly 140,000
BTC in the
Mt Gox cache. This isn’t the first time the U.S. government has been a top holder; the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was the second-largest
BTC holder after seizing the original Silk Road marketplace. However, the government’s stash at that time was depleted after the U.S. Marshals held bitcoin auctions to sell the crypto assets in 2014.
What do you think about the U.S. government’s current bitcoin stash? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
