US Government Moves $103 Million in Seized Bitcoin and BNB, But Hasn't Said Why

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham reported that wallets it attributes to the U.S. government moved roughly $103.2 million in crypto on Tuesday. The transfers included 833.6 BTC, which Arkham says passed through two unlabeled addresses before arriving at addresses it tags as Coinbase Prime deposit accounts, and 40,285 BNB that moved through a pair of unlabeled addresses. Coinbase Prime is a custody and trading service used by institutional clients.

Arkham links about 568.7 BTC of the moved Bitcoin to forfeited proceeds from HashFlare, a crypto-mining contract service run by Estonians Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin, and about 264.9 BTC to funds connected with the 2016 Bitfinex hack. U.S. prosecutors have described the HashFlare operation as having collected more than $577 million in sales between 2015 and 2019; courts have ordered forfeiture of related assets to compensate victims. Arkham traces the moved BNB to assets seized from Alameda Research, the trading firm affiliated with the collapsed FTX exchange.

A deposit to Coinbase Prime is commonly interpreted by market participants as preparation to sell, but a transfer itself does not confirm a sale. Coinbase Prime also provides custody services, and previous large transfers — including a $288 million move in July — have been for storage rather than immediate disposal. The U.S. government has not announced any sale tied to Tuesday’s activity.

Policy constraints also limit what the government can do with seized crypto. An executive order in March 2025 created a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which the administration said "shall not be sold," and the Treasury maintains a separate Digital Asset Stockpile for non-Bitcoin tokens like BNB; releases from that stockpile are restricted to defined purposes such as victim restitution or law enforcement needs. Arkham’s September research estimated U.S. government holdings at about 325,000 BTC — roughly $27 billion and the largest government total in its ranking, ahead of the U.K. and El Salvador.

Traders monitor such movements because large disposals by a government can increase market supply and exert downward pressure on prices, as occurred when 19,800 BTC tied to the Silk Road case were moved to Coinbase in December 2024 and coincided with a price drop. In this instance, however, authorities have not disclosed the motive for the transfers, leaving observers to weigh custody versus potential sale.