Key Takeaways
- The U.S. govt has begun liquidating the bitcoin it seized from Silk Highway exploiter James Zhong.
- The DOJ already bought 9,861 BTC on March 14, netting $215.5 million.
- It plans on promoting the rest 41,490 BTC in 4 installments over the process the 12 months.
Proportion this newsletter
On-chain analysts spotted in the beginning of the month that the U.S. govt used to be transferring budget it had seized from Silk Highway exploiter James Zhong. It seems that the DOJ used to be maneuvering to promote one of the vital stash.
Dumping Silk Highway Bitcoin
The U.S. govt is promoting a few of its bitcoin holdings.
A brand new submitting from the US Division of Justice signifies that one of the vital bitcoin seized via government from Silk Highway exploiter James Zhong has already been bought.
Consistent with the record, the federal government held at one level a complete of 51,351 BTC (price roughly $1.4 billion at these days’s costs) in connection to Silk Highway—nearly all of which got here from Zhong. Of those holdings, 9,861 BTC have been bought on March 14, netting the DOJ over $215.5 million. The submitting states that the federal government paid kind of $215,738 in charges for the transaction. It plans to promote the rest 41,490 BTC ($1.1 billion) in 4 extra installments over the process the calendar 12 months—regardless that it is going to wait till Zhong’s sentencing to liquidate the second one batch.
Zhong is accused of defrauding darknet market Silk Highway via exploiting the platform’s withdrawal mechanism in September 2012. U.S. government controlled to snatch Zhong’s stash of fifty,676 BTC in November 2021. Zhong pleaded accountable to 1 rely of twine fraud in November 2022. Even though he faces as much as two decades in prison, he not too long ago requested the courtroom to spare him jail time, because of his tricky formative years, autism, and the truth that his crime used to be victimless. He’s scheduled for sentencing on April 14.
It’s extremely most probably that the federal government used Coinbase to promote its 9,861 BTC. On-chain analysts spotted in the beginning of March that wallets related to seized Silk Highway budget had moved roughly 49,000 BTC to more than a few contemporary addresses. Such a addresses used to be known as belonging to crypto trade Coinbase; it gained 9,825 BTC on March 7.
The DOJ’s use of Coinbase is extraordinary, as the federal government has traditionally most popular liquidating seized virtual property via public auctions.
Disclosure: On the time of writing, the creator of this piece owned BTC, ETH, and several other different crypto property.
