Wall Street Journal named the U.S. as one of the largest holders of bitcoin
WSJ: the U.S. government is one of the largest holders of bitcoin
Members of the crypto community are trying to track wallets, fearing the impact of a one-time sale of a large number of coins on the global market
The US federal government is one of the largest holders of bitcoin in the world, writes The Wall Street Journal. The market valuation of digital assets placed on the wallets of U.S. government agencies is more than $5 billion.
Journalists estimate that nearly 200,000 bitcoins were confiscated from cybercriminals or seized from the black market and stored in hardware wallets operated by the U.S. Department of Justice and a number of other government agencies.
Some government wallet addresses are public, and members of the crypto community are keeping a close eye on them, fearing the negative impact of a one-time sale of a large number of coins on the global digital asset market. According to Coinmarketcap, the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market is $1.08 trillion.
However, according to experts interviewed by the publication, the process of converting Bitcoin into fiat currency is a rather long bureaucratic process. Only after the court makes a final ruling on the confiscation of cryptocurrency, the government takes ownership of the seized funds and transfers them to the U.S. Marshals Service - the main agency responsible for the liquidation of confiscated assets. Thus, approval of the sale goes through several instances, and only then can the coins be sold through auction and exchange.
The U.S. Marshals Service first sold some confiscated crypto assets on an exchange in January 2021. They made transactions in small volumes to avoid negatively affecting the price. The agency plans to follow a similar strategy in the future, spreading out the sale of digital assets over an extended period of time.
The first public buyer of the confiscated bitcoins at the auction was venture capitalist Tim Draper, who predicted the first digital currency to rise to $250k.
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