On Thursday, 12,267 coins, worth about a billion dollars, emerged from a government wallet with bitcoins confiscated after the hack of the Bitfinex exchange. Almost all of it went to one new address that no one has described yet. There was no deposit on the stock exchange.
- The government wallet after the confiscation of Bitfinex left 12,267 bitcoins, approximately USD 1.01 billion. The coins went to new addresses without a label, not to the stock exchange.
- Arkham analysts associate this wallet with the confiscation of approximately 94,000. bitcoins from 2022. Both destination addresses are already empty.
- The day before, approximately $119 million in USDT and bitcoin was transferred to Coinbase Prime deposit addresses. Coinbase Prime also conducts custody, so a deposit does not prove a sale.
- The March 2025 Reserve Order says that the reserve’s bitcoin will not be sold. It has two exceptions: a court order and restitution to victims.
The transfer was seen by blockchain data analysts. The Department of Justice and the US Marshals have not said anything about him, so there is neither confirmation nor denial.
The Polish bitcoin holder is concerned about one thing in this matter: supply. The U.S. government holds one of the largest bitcoin stocks in the world following the confiscations. Each time these coins move, the market asks whether they are going to be sold.
Bitcoins confiscated from Lichtenstein and Morgan
Arkham label leads to 2022 confiscation. The services then collected approximately 94,000. bitcoins to Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, a couple convicted of laundering the spoils of the Bitfinex hack. The coins had been in government wallets since that confiscation.
An address without a label is not the same as a stock exchange
An unmarked address means that analysts have not yet assigned an owner to it. That doesn’t mean no one knows who was controlling it.
On Wednesday, government-linked wallets sent approximately $119 million in USDT and bitcoin to Coinbase Prime deposit addresses. Arkham analysts attributed these funds to the FTX and Alameda seizures and the Bitfinex case. Crypto Briefing and TFTC give different numbers for bitcoin itself, so I’m not giving that one.
The sales ban has two exceptions
Trump signed the regulation on the strategic bitcoin reserve in March 2025. It states that the reserve bitcoin will not be sold and is to be held as a reserve asset of the United States.
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Right behind this sentence are two exceptions: disposal by court order and restitution to identified and verifiable crime victims. The second loophole in this matter has an addressee, because Bitfinex coins have a victim in name: the exchange and its customers.
It is not known whether these bitcoins entered the reserve. The Unchained editorial team did not find a document that would settle this.
Yields fell 5.7 basis points on Thursday
If you hold bitcoin for more than one session, this transfer does not change anything in your wallet. This will change the day the exchange deposit appears in Arkham’s data.
Both addresses that accepted $1 billion are now empty. Still haven’t received the labels.
