According to a March 31 court document, the US government sold 9,861.17 Bitcoin on March 14 for $215.7 million.
The sold BTC was part of the 51,351 seized from James Zhong, according to the court record. After being apprehended for illegally obtaining digital assets from the dark net marketplace Silk Road via hacking, Zhong pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
US Govt. & Bitcoin
The government requested forfeiture of the seized BTC from Zhong in 2022. According to US officials, it paid $215,738 in transaction fees and has net proceeds of $215.52 million.
Meanwhile, the government announced intentions to liquidate the over 40,000 Bitcoin balance in four batches this year. It would not, however, make any further purchases until Zhong’s sentencing date.
The US government transferred 49,000 Bitcoin on March 8, sending 9,861 BTC to Coinbase and the balance to two new addresses.
Members of the crypto community were concerned that the actions would raise selling pressure on BTC.
However, the price of Bitcoin has risen steadily in March, reaching more than $29,000 on March 29. BTC has earned more than 22% in the last 30 days.
The most well-known cryptocurrency in the world, Bitcoin (BTC), and the second most popular, Ethereum (ETH), both saw their values remain below the $23,000 and $1,600 thresholds, respectively, on Tuesday morning.
Dogecoin (DOGE), Ripple (XRP), Litecoin (LTC), and Solana (SOL) were just some of the other famous altcoins that fell into the red. The GMX token’s price increased by 7.1% in just 24 hours, making it the day’s biggest winner. In the last 24 hours, OKB has lost the most ground, falling by more over 3%.
At press time, the total value of all crypto assets on the market was $1.03 trillion, up 0.51 percent in just 24 hours.
According to a court document, the US government sold 9,861.17 bitcoin (BTC) for nearly $216 million on March 14.
The bitcoin sold is part of the 50,000 BTC confiscated in November following the arrest of James Zhong, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud after the government accused him of rigging the Silk Road transaction system in 2012.
The government hailed it at the moment as the largest cryptocurrency seizure in history.
According to the filing, the government plans to liquidate the remaining 41,490 bitcoins in four tranches over the course of this calendar year.
On March 9, cryptocurrency traders were alarmed after seeing US officials transfer more than $200 million in bitcoin to Coinbase (COIN).
As a consequence, Bitcoin’s price was volatile, rising as much as 9.7% in a 24-hour period before reverting to its previous level.
To read our blog on “BTC mining malware designed to imitate Google Translate desktop,” click here
