Key Takeaways
- A pockets related to seized Silk Highway funds moved $1.08 billion in BTC.
- The tackle moved 39,174 BTC to 2 new wallets, and 9,825 BTC to a pockets reportedly belonging to Coinbase.
- The funds have been initially seized from Silk Highway exploiter James Zhong in November 2021.
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The DOJ might have despatched among the seized Silk Highway funds to Coinbase, however that doesn’t imply they’re about to liquidate.
$1.08 Billion in BTC
It seems that a few of Silk Highway’s bitcoins are on the transfer.
On-chain knowledge reveals {that a} Bitcoin pockets tackle related to the U.S. authorities moved roughly 49,000 BTC yesterday—a sum price roughly $1.08 billion on the time of writing.
The tackle, which begins with BC1QMX, transferred about 9,000 BTC ($199 million) to an tackle starting in BC1QE, then 30,174 BTC ($667 million) to a second tackle starting in BC1QF, and 9,825 BTC ($217 million) to a 3rd tackle beginning in 367YO. Slightly over 825 bitcoins ($18 million) stay within the authentic tackle.
In response to on-chain safety agency PeckShield, the unique tackle belongs to the U.S. authorities, which makes use of the pockets to retailer among the 50,676 BTC ($1.12 billion) it seized from Silk Highway exploiter James Zhong in November 2021. Zhong obtained the sum by exploiting the darknet market’s withdrawal mechanism in September 2012. He pleaded responsible to at least one rely of wire fraud in November 2022.
The primary two addresses, which obtained a mixed whole of 39,174 BTC, have been freshly created. Nonetheless, PeckShield recognized the third tackle (367YO) as belonging to U.S.-based crypto change Coinbase. Bitcoin on-chain analytics agency Glassnode and on-chain analytics agency Lookonchain each echoed PeckShield’s findings. Crypto Briefing was unable to independently confirm pockets possession.
The transferring funds prompted hypothesis on Twitter that the Division of Justice could also be in search of to promote among the bitcoins it despatched to Coinbase. That appears unlikely, nonetheless, because the U.S. authorities has traditionally elected to liquidate its bitcoin holdings by way of public auctions.
Disclosure: On the time of writing, the writer of this piece owned BTC, ETH, and a number of other different crypto property.
