"Hmm I guess how can you be the biggest holder of BTC eh?"
The United States (US) government is one of the largest holders of Bitcoin (BTC) after owning more than 200,000 of the digital asset worth $5 billion despite selling thousands of BTC earlier this year.
Through observation, the US government's BTC wallet has made the three largest seizures of the digital asset, where it seized 69,369 BTC from Silk Road in November 2020, 94,643 BTC from Bitfinex Hack in January 2022 and 51,326 from James Zhong in March 2022.
The US government has kept BTC offline in encrypted storage devices or better known as hardware wallets kept under the Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service.
There is no denying that seized digital assets do not immediately become government property, but the US Marshals Service will only accept seized BTC after a court issues a final forfeiture judgment.
In addition, the US government may also sell a portion of BTC from time to time through an auction system based on a court-ordered liquidation.
So here it can be seen that the most notable government auction happened in 2014 when billionaire Tim Draper bought 30,000 BTC.
However, the US government in recent years has turned to cryptocurrency exchanges to sell seized BTC through public auctions, for example the government sold 9,118 BTC on Coinbase in March 2023.
