US authorities reportedly strikes Bitcoin seized from Silk Highway, sparking sale hypothesis

A U.S. government-controlled account, identified for holding almost $2 billion in confiscated from the defunct darkish net market Silk Highway, executed a number of transactions on Tuesday, hinting at a possible upcoming sale of those digital belongings, a number of blockchain analytics corporations reported.

The account carried out a minor transaction of roughly $65 to a deposit tackle at Coinbase (NASDAQ:) World Inc.’s Coinbase Prime unit, as famous by Arkham Intelligence Inc.

In complete, transfers amounting to roughly $131 million to Coinbase have been recorded on Tuesday, with a good portion being redirected to different addresses linked to the U.S. authorities, in response to the agency’s evaluation.

“This seems to be a check transaction from the U.S. authorities,” analysts famous, relating to the $65 transaction.

“The small quantity is being despatched to Coinbase Prime, whereas the big quantity is being credited again to the U.S. authorities as a ‘change output.’ Almost definitely, they may comply with up by sending a bigger (presumably the complete) quantity to Coinbase Prime, having confirmed the check transaction arrived at its meant vacation spot.”

Afterward, additional transactions noticed round 2,000 Bitcoin being consolidated from a number of authorities addresses and moved to Coinbase, in response to Flipside Crypto.

Whereas digital wallets sometimes keep anonymity, these transactions are intently monitored by market contributors as a result of their potential to affect Bitcoin’s market value.

The U.S. authorities has beforehand liquidated parts of its Silk Highway Bitcoin holdings, reminiscent of by way of auctions. The account concerned in Tuesday’s transactions initially contained 30,174 Bitcoin.

The Silk Highway platform, which was shut down by the federal government in 2013, enabled customers to buy illicit items starting from narcotics to counterfeit paperwork utilizing BTC.

On the time of its closure, federal brokers confiscated Bitcoin valued at $3.6 million, which has since surged to billions of {dollars} on account of the cryptocurrency’s rally.