U.S. government holds 205,515 bitcoins valued at $5.66b

Nearly 40,000 bitcoins from wallets linked to U.S. Government law enforcement confiscations are on the move, according to Glassnode

The U.S. government presently holds 205,515 bitcoins valued at $5.66b, according to the current exchange rates. The bitcoins were seized in three cases, which include the Silk Road bitcoin confiscation in November 2020, the Bitfinex hack seizure in 2022, and the confiscation of bitcoins from James Zhong in 2022. Out of them, 69,369 bitcoin was confiscated from ‘Individual X,’ 94,643 bitcoin was seized from Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan, and 51,326 bitcoin was confiscated from Zhong in November last year.

As per a report from Glassnode on March 9, 2023, some of these bitcoins have moved, bringing down the total from 215,338 to 205,515 bitcoin.

Nearly 40,000 bitcoins from wallets linked to U.S. Government law enforcement confiscations are on the move, according to Glassnode. The bulk of these seem to be internal transfers (so far). Though, nearly 9,861 (bitcoin) confiscated from the Silk Road hacker have been sent to Coinbase cluster.

The present estimate of 205,515 bitcoins comes from a Dune Analytics set of metrics created by 21Shares. The data shows the U.S. government’s addresses and transaction history. Of the current confiscated cache of bitcoin, 44 per cent came from the Bitfinex forfeiture, 32.2 per cent from ‘Individual X,’ and 23.8 per cent from the Zhong confiscation.

The U.S. government’s confiscated 205,515 bitcoins account for a significant cache compared to that of other big holders. Even though less than Grayscale’s cache of 643,572 bitcoin, it exceeds Microstrategy’s stash of 132,500 bitcoin. Moreover, compared to the whales in the bitcoin-rich list of addresses, it would be the second biggest (if consolidated), falling behind Binance’s bitcoin cold wallet, which holds 248,597 bitcoin at present.