The analytical company Arkham has officially denied rumors that the U.S. authorities allegedly sold 170,000 bitcoins, equivalent to approximately $20 billion. The company stated that this information is not accurate, and the details regarding American government crypto assets are significantly broader.
This is reported by Business • Media
Bitcoin Ownership Structure of the U.S. Government
According to Arkham, the U.S. government owns at least 198,000 BTC, amounting to about $23.5 billion. These assets are distributed among several government agencies, including the Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Offices of Federal Prosecutors. For at least the past four months, these cryptocurrencies have remained inactive at the respective addresses controlled by government entities.
Specifically, the U.S. Marshals Service holds 28,988 BTC, as confirmed by a response to a public information request. However, as emphasized by Arkham, this is only part of the overall government crypto portfolio, as other agencies are also involved in the confiscation and storage of digital assets.
Sources and History of Crypto Asset Acquisition
The majority of the bitcoins owned by the U.S. government were seized as a result of investigations and criminal cases. In particular, 114,599 BTC were confiscated from Bitfinex hackers Ilia Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan. Another 51,680 BTC were obtained after being seized from James Zhong, linked to the Silk Road platform; part of these assets has already been liquidated through Coinbase Prime. Additionally, 2,874.9 BTC are held in custody according to a ruling regarding drug dealer Ryan Faras. Furthermore, approximately $81 million in bitcoins was seized from Alameda Research accounts on Binance and Binance US, and another $79 million from the founders of the fraudulent project HashFlare, Sergey Potapenko and Ivan Turagin.
“If this is true, it is a complete strategic mistake that sets the U.S. back years in the Bitcoin race.”
The issue gained attention after journalist using the pseudonym L0la L33tz approached the U.S. Marshals Service with a request regarding the volume of bitcoins held by the government. In response, she received information about the existence of 28,988 BTC. Later, this data was used in publications that sparked a wave of rumors about the sale of a large portion of the government’s bitcoin reserves. However, Arkham refuted such claims, emphasizing the multi-layered structure of crypto asset ownership across various government departments.