Print Page - Bitcoin moved by the US government

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US government just moved 10,000 bitcoins to an exchange, coinbase prime. While this might be worrying for others especially after the German government moving their own bitcoins, I advise everyone to remain calm. The 10,000 bitcoins taken in custody from the Silk road case were transferred to an exchange but not with the intention of selling them.

The government has made partnership with Coinbase (https://www.coinbase.com/blog/u-s-marshals-service-chooses-coinbase-to-safeguard-trade-its-large-cap) and has entrusted them to hold seized bitcoins. So if anyone is saying that this is a sign of a market crash or a reason for it then don’t believe them and remain steadfast in your hodling.

Just as the first replied had said "Nobody really cares", although I don't think traders and short term hodlers would be saying the same. But truth be told, news like this, especially the ones coming from the US government can cause panic, and all thanks to social media, because they are the driving force behind such.

~~But moving 10K BTC to Coinbase when price is at $58k sounds a little weird~~. Or has Coinbase always been keeping US government's Bitcoin?.

And lastly, the Link you provided is not working. Is it general or just me ?.

Quote from: peter0425 on August 15, 2024, 05:57:52 AM

The government has made partnership with Coinbase (https://www.coinbase.com/blog/u-s-marshals-service-chooses-coinbase-to-safeguard-trade-its-large-cap) and has entrusted them to hold seized bitcoins. So if anyone is saying that this is a sign of a market crash or a reason for it then don’t believe them and remain steadfast in your hodling.

If you read the article you shared more carefully, you'll see that it says they are in charge of trading the seized bitcoins, not just holding them. I mean, it's not that I care what they do with it or that I'm worried about them selling, but let's not misinterpret things.

Quote from: https://www.coinbase.com/blog/u-s-marshals-service-chooses-coinbase-to-safeguard-trade-its-large-cap

Today, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), an agency within the U.S. Department of Justice that is responsible for asset forfeiture, announced that it selected Coinbase Prime to provide custody and advanced trading services for the agency’s “Class 1” (large cap) digital assets, which it manages centrally in support of federal law enforcement.

I saw this news on X and it seems like no one cares about it anymore, people are getting smarter after the news about the German government and/or Mt.gox selling their bitcoins. If you also follow Mt.gox's wallet, they just transferred over 33kBTC to Bitgo yesterday and you can see that number is much larger than the US government . But no one cares whether they sell or do anything with those bitcoins .
Governments or organizations selling large amounts of bitcoin are no longer scary, instead the market is gradually adapting and no longer cares. If you think people still care then they'll spend more time worrying about Mt.gox than the bitcoins the US government has moved.
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/08/15/7S08f.jpeg

https://x.com/ArkhamIntel/status/1823375642953486636

Is this how sorely the US government lacks of basic Bitcoin knowledge that they have to enter into a partnership with a private company just to safekeep their coins? They hired and paid a custodian of something which even a young child could securely self-custody?

Anyway, just like the others, I don't care if they hodl or sell their coins. They're free to do whatever they want with their seized coins. But since they're the ones who started labelling certain coins as dirty and tainted, why don't they practice what they preach and burn these coins from circulation?

I check the Bitcoin price is same, so no one thinks this will impact to Bitcoin price instead @OP you're might be the one who think this $10K Bitcoin moved will impact Bitcoin price since you're the one who bring this subject.

Quote from: fuguebtc on August 15, 2024, 08:05:29 AM

I saw this news on X and it seems like no one cares about it anymore, people are getting smarter after the news about the German government and/or Mt.gox selling their bitcoins.

Because it's really a pointless factor to predict Bitcoin price.

If someone think moving out coins is same to sell the coins, it means they're want other people must not move the coins. And some people will hate this activity since they will say Bitcoin is a currency instead of a commodity. :P

Quote from: Rikafip on August 15, 2024, 07:35:34 AM

Quote from: peter0425 on August 15, 2024, 05:57:52 AM

Quote from: https://www.coinbase.com/blog/u-s-marshals-service-chooses-coinbase-to-safeguard-trade-its-large-cap

People just misinterpret everything US government do and they only look at those figures moved then get panic since they think there's negative effect it will give to the market. But we see people reaction on that situation and they should be calm in such situation since we need to normalize those kind of selling since there's provably instances that any institution will take their profit so we need to chill and don't get scared about those situation since it will never create scary dump in the market.

Maybe some people like OP just want to hear some opinion from other people regarding on this action done by US government. So provably lots of people confused about that situation already know that there's nothing to get fear and its better for them to relax then focus on their investments.

Quote from: peter0425 on August 15, 2024, 05:57:52 AM

I agree with you that no reason to be panic now but disagree with you that moving bitcoin to an account on Coinbase Prime does not have any risk of selling now or in future. This movement can serve as moving to a third party custodial wallet but in future, it might be sold by the owner of these bitcoins, the US. government.

It's more realistic to assume that these bitcoins will be sold, just a matter of time, when it will be sold only. Assume it will be sold, you will see no reason to panic as in Bitcoin market, there are buyers and sellers and many bitcoins changed hands on daily basis.

Quote from: dzungmobile on August 15, 2024, 08:58:37 AM

Compared to what Germany sold, it's not that much, and it probably won't affect the market. For most governments, Bitcoin has no particular value, especially considering that they didn't buy it, they confiscated it. Sometimes they decide to sell some of their Bitcoin when they need to, but on a national scale, these funds are insignificant to them. If they move it, it means they have plans for this coin. My opinion is that in this case, it would be better if holders who don't understand the value of Bitcoin (like some countries) sold it, and let it be in the hands of true holders.

Quote from: Smartvirus on August 15, 2024, 10:04:30 AM

One thing is for sure about these sort of transactions:

It does make the news for a time, afterwards, it dies out. It’s strange however, government having to make these deals with CEX.
Either they sell or not, it always doesn’t matter, the market is sure to absorb all of it and bounce back. A mare BTC10,000 that I don’t own wouldn’t be enough to cause a market crash.

News change from old bitcoins to bitcoins under control of governments. They are nearly the same, as transactions can be done for wallet switches or preparation for sales later.

Do governments want to do this, move their Bitcoin transactions, to fud and manipulate the market?

Only governments know intention of their activities but we only can know when they already sold their coins. At times of transactions, we are uncertain about next movements of these entities but to be sure, if those coins will be sold, market can survive and move next into the future. No need to feel panic when someone, some entities sell their bitcoins if we know and believe that Bitcoin will exist for a long time. I don't know how long but it won't die soon or die by any sales from governments.

Quote from: NotATether on August 15, 2024, 07:42:13 AM

Literally the only people who should be selling right now are short-term traders who realize and acknowledge that they are most likely going to get burnt by the market when the Bitcoin price inevitably goes back up like every other time this sort of thing has happened in the past. Don't you guys think so too?

I think the US government (and the German government too) treats Bitcoin like any other seized asset, meaning they sell it without considering its future price. It's not a smart move, but governments aren't really known for making smart decisions or thinking ahead.

Quote from: Darker45 on August 15, 2024, 08:16:28 AM

I don't think that those bitcoins are sent to Coinbase for hodl purpose but instead to be sold. Anything else wouldn't make any sense whatsoever.

Quote from: Alexinnovation0 on August 15, 2024, 08:59:47 AM

big moves like this can make people nervous, but it's probably just a routine transfer. With 10K BTC being only a small fraction of daily volume, it’s not likely to impact the market much. Keep calm and keep holding!

A big amount of coins moving to exchanges or back to wallets if a reason for nervousness, that trader should not trade, because they lack the trader's mindset. The latter needs to identify these changes but not get emotionally charged because of it.

There are so many such movements happening every few days, what do we have to do about it? Wait for the price to drop and buy it, its plain and simple. Because when you have bought at that low you have ample points to sell at having a good multiplication of the price.

I think government moving and selling Bitcoin under their custody is good for the Bitcoin economy. It may have a temporary downturn effect but it will be beneficial in the long run. Imagine instead of one entity holding such number of BTC, through liquidating it, will let multiple hands hold that number of coins. This kind of action pushes the Bitcoin market into decentralization. It will also hinder the manipulation of the market.

The more people holding BTC the more harder it is to manipulate the market which in turn produce a healthy decentralized market exchange. It also promotes market stability and helps reduce market volatility.

With more people holding Bitcoin it also promotes network stability since more people will think of hosting nodes, and mining the chain which in turn makes it difficult for the hackers to exploit the network.

Quote from: peter0425 on August 15, 2024, 05:57:52 AM

The standard practice of the US government is to open an auction through the US Marshal Service (https://www.usmarshals.gov/what-we-do/asset-forfeiture/sale-approximately-404158424932-bitcoin) where interested parties are called upon to submit a bid for the purchase of Bitcoins. With the agreement between the US Marshal and Coinbase, we can just speculate that the coin is for safe keeping and not for sale.

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I don't really care if the US want to sell all the Bitcoin at its disposal because the market will still readjust as we saw in the case of the German State of Saxony. A price drop is a good opportunity to accumulate, so it's all good.

Quote from: pooya87 on August 15, 2024, 06:34:43 AM

Nobody really cared about the German thing and nobody is caring about this one either. In both cases we only have noise in the social media, otherwise 10k bitcoin is not even a big amount. According to coinmarketcap.com the bitcoin daily trading volume is 550k so that's like 1.8% of one day's volume...

Bitcoin have gone passed this stage whereas small fraction such as 10k BTC, this use to be news when the sink road thing happen a long time ago, and even after the sink road incident bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency market have gone through some other worst phase such as FTX exit scam and the other notable scams that effected the cryptocurrency market for a short while before recovery.

So selling off the remaining of the entire bitcoin seizure in the sink road will be a good news instead of bad news as expected, and at the moment, this sell off event won't have any impact on the price of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies assets as in form of a market reactions.

Quote from: peter0425 on August 15, 2024, 05:57:52 AM

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The government has made partnership with Coinbase (https://www.coinbase.com/blog/u-s-marshals-service-chooses-coinbase-to-safeguard-trade-its-large-cap) and has entrusted them to hold seized bitcoins. So if anyone is saying that this is a sign of a market crash or a reason for it then don’t believe them and remain steadfast in your hodling.

Thanks for sharing OP, but I didn't even care when the German government sold 50,000 Bitcoins so why should I care for the government.
I mean this is why Bitcoin is decentralized. Anybody that has it can just sell it anytime they want to and that includes the government. :)

If this happened 5-6 years ago when most of the investors are making decisions based on what's being spread online by these online media, this news might be enough for the market to drop down in price by maybe around 5-10%. It's good that the market cap has grown up significantly already, and investors right now are more intelligent. As expected, this action by the US government doesn't have any negative impact on the market. :)

Quote from: Rikafip on August 15, 2024, 10:33:25 AM

Quote from: Darker45 on August 15, 2024, 08:16:28 AM

I don't think that those bitcoins are sent to Coinbase for hodl purpose but instead to be sold. Anything else wouldn't make any sense whatsoever.

Although the reason cited is "safeguard and trade", indeed it's probably to just sell them. But I wonder why they had to enter into an official partnership just to do that. And is there a need to be equivocal about it?

It is a possibility that the US government wants to make the most of their coins. Bitcoin isn't anymore a currency of criminals, perhaps the prevailing perception during the time they seized those coins. Today, Bitcoin is a widely accepted asset class. Indeed, it is attractive to try earn from those coins rather than sell them outright.

Is this the reason why Bitcoin dropped yesterday to 56,000$? It's annoying... When Bitcoin is almost crossing the 60,000$ line again, US government moves a large chunk of BTC to an exchange. If they have no intention of selling it, why not just keep the coins stored inside a cold wallet under the possession of the government itself? Besides being safer for the government, it would also protect the market from pessimism and further dumps in price like the one we have just seen.

But it really seems the government isn't concerned about it at all. Thinking on the political scenario, it was drawn in a way that if Bitcoin does well, it's going to be good for Trump, so the current government doesn't have any sympathy for the cryptocurrency, and will despise and sabotage it as much as they can, at least on short run.

Quote from: peter0425 on August 15, 2024, 05:57:52 AM

It’s nice to know that the US government has decided to solely rely upon a publicly traded corporation to do the handling of the seized assets for safe keeping. Coin base has surely turned into a government tool to help influence regulation but has sewn coin base into their crypto strategy. I am surprised that the treasury hasn’t been the sole holder of these seized assets.

Quote from: Rikafip on August 15, 2024, 07:35:34 AM

Quote from: peter0425 on August 15, 2024, 05:57:52 AM

My bad. I think I only meant that the move to the exchange doesn’t necessarily mean that they are going to sell it right now. The partnership explains why they would move it to the exchange. I am not saying they will never sell but the move is most likely not about them gearing up to sell.

Quote from: avp2306 on August 15, 2024, 08:57:16 AM

Maybe some people like OP just want to hear some opinion from other people regarding on this action done by US government. So provably lots of people confused about that situation already know that there's nothing to get fear and its better for them to relax then focus on their investments.

I saw some people on social media platforms speculating already about how this can affect the market so I only wanted to share in case some people were being affected by FUD.

I don't see any bad thing, that's actually a good thing.

If they only move the coins, the miners will get benefit from the fees.

If they sell the coins, it will make Bitcoin become more decentralized.

Quote from: uneng on August 16, 2024, 01:38:22 AM

it would also protect the market from pessimism and further dumps in price like the one we have just seen.

Why they should ask other people permission if they want to move and sell their own coins? have you ask other people permission before you move and sell your coins?

Quote from: Darker45 on August 16, 2024, 01:15:18 AM

Although the reason cited is "safeguard and trade", indeed it's probably to just sell them. But I wonder why they had to enter into an official partnership just to do that.

Dunno, my guess is due transparency. And who knows, maybe they get some special perks that are not available to us mere mortals.

Quote from: Darker45 on August 16, 2024, 01:15:18 AM

And is there a need to be equivocal about it?

Tbh, I don't think they are.

Quote from: Darker45 on August 16, 2024, 01:15:18 AM

It is a possibility that the US government wants to make the most of their coins. Bitcoin isn't anymore a currency of criminals, perhaps the prevailing perception during the time they seized those coins. Today, Bitcoin is a widely accepted asset class. Indeed, it is attractive to try earn from those coins rather than sell them outright.

Could be the reason why they sent just a fraction of their total holding on Coinbase.

Germany, the US, and whichever country is moving tons of Bitcoins, to be honest, are no longer worrying. This only means that the bulls are stronger than the scary news that is being shown to us. Every time there's a movement of huge transfers from here and there, it seems to be a big deal but not anymore. While it can be helpful for someone who analyzes the market through fundamentals but the long impact of it will still show how firm Bitcoin is. And with that clarification, it's like a custody for those moved Bitcoins by the USMS or whichever US government agency that's responsible for that, to be sold or not, it won't be surprising.

Quote from: uneng on August 16, 2024, 01:38:22 AM

Why are you upset when other people sell their bitcoins? If it was not the US government but Satoshi who woke up and sold his bitcoins, would you also feel uncomfortable because he was the cause of bitcoin's decline? Even though it wasn't the bitcoin the US government bought, it belongs to them and they have the right to do whatever they want.

Also, haven't we always been shouting to buy if bitcoin drops more, why are some of us now feeling upset and blaming others just because bitcoin is correcting?

Let's look at the positive side: the government selling bitcoin is a good thing, many people even expect the government to sell all bitcoin because in the long run that will be good for bitcoin because it will be more decentralized.

Quote from: Cryptmuster on August 15, 2024, 09:18:46 AM

Compared to what Germany sold, it's not that much, and it probably won't affect the market.

Sales from governments affect the market but selling effect is smaller than emotional and psychological effects on market participants that last longer. After immediate effects from considerable sale, market will be panic and need quite a long time to recover and calm down. Effects even start before sales actually happen, it begins with rumors, news around the air and social media.

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For most governments, Bitcoin has no particular value

They did see Bitcoin value after many years since 2009 and after Bitcoin has gotten massively impressive adoption and value as well as price growth.

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especially considering that they didn't buy it, they confiscated it.

They did confiscated it not because Bitcoin has zero value. They confiscated it because has value and their confiscations have big value actually.

Quote from: mindrust on August 16, 2024, 07:43:48 AM

Trump predicted this.

He knew that these crooks were going to sell the confiscated coins and that’s why he said “Never sell your bitcoin” in Nashville during the bitcoin conference.

Why would they move these coins to an exchange otherwise?

Kabamala is full of shit and everybody sees through her. She is anti-crypto.

Maybe in preparation in there possible departure and want to clean out those possible mess since they maybe don't want to give Trump a resources to use if he win on this upcoming election that's why they decide to do that.

That's why I don't really like Kamala to win, they are showing an indication that there's nothing good will happen on crypto/bitcoin in her administration since possibly they would follow what Biden did.

But let see what happen and hopefully Trump will get a good momentum then win, since this is somehow this is beneficial for all bitcoin user.

Quote from: ultrloa on August 16, 2024, 09:45:32 AM

Quote from: mindrust on August 16, 2024, 07:43:48 AM

I hope Trump wins because I like his qualities as a trader. He knows how and what to do to make business profitable for everyone. And I believe that he will be able to organize the relationship between the government and the crypto world so that everyone benefits from it. I am sure that he will be able to do this, judging by his actions and statements. It is not for nothing that he pays so much attention to statements about the crypto industry.

The government moved some Bitcoin to Coinbase. So what? It does not imply they are preparing to flood the market and lower the price, therefore ruining it

This is just smart asset management. To handle seized assets, they are working with reliable platform Coinbase. Actually, it's a vote of trust in Bitcoin. The government considers it as a reasonable, long-term store of value

Let us now be real. The government is not going to engage any dubious actions meant to devaluate the market. They under investigation; their behavior is open. And it wouldn't bring down the system even if they tried to sell a lot of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is resilient. It's meant to be handling this kind of thing

So, don't panic. Stay the course. This is only another obstacle on the road toward Bitcoin's unavoidable supremacy. And the future is Bitcoin, I am telling you

Quote from: kizlod on August 16, 2024, 11:16:53 AM

Quote from: mindrust on August 16, 2024, 07:43:48 AM

Don't they have to sell confiscated coins at some point?

They can use the forfeited funds but It also depends on the state I guess.

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime/asset-forfeiture

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Use of Forfeited Funds
All across the country, federal, state, local, and tribal forfeited funds and property are being used to help protect and serve our communities and support law enforcement. For example, in Kentucky, forfeited funds were used to refurbish a facility to shelter child abuse victims in the state. And in New York City, forfeited funds are being used to advance community-based policing to better serve neighborhoods. These funds have financed an array of additional services and equipment, including:

•A drug and alcohol treatment facility
•Transportation to drug treatment services
•Naloxone rescue kits for opioid overdose victims
•A job skills program
•A youth program aimed at drug and crime prevention
•Afterschool programming
•A plaque for a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty
•School resource officer salaries
•Bomb-sniffing canines

…

However I don’t see a statement saying that they should sell it.

They can very well use bitcoins to help people without liquidating them first.

Trump would have found a way to keep them.

Another source

https://www.usmarshals.gov/what-we-do/asset-forfeiture

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Personal Property
The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) manages and sells a wide array of assets including, but not limited to, vehicles, vessels, aircraft, fine jewelry, and art. In addition, U.S. Marshals Service is responsible for selling intangible assets such as virtual currency, domain names, and other various licenses. Every year, U.S. Marshals Service features hundreds of online and live auctions that are open to the public. These auctions frequently feature collectible vehicles, diamonds, certified Rolex watches, gold and silver, famous paintings, and much more.

Here they say the US marshals service is responsible for selling personal assets including crypto but I don’t know if it is mandatory.

Quote from: peter0425 on August 15, 2024, 05:57:52 AM

If a whale had come across this kinda transaction without a clear explanation of the conditions behind the transaction, trust me, this would have triggered another panic sale just like that of Germany.

Irrespective of the News about the US Government being behind this transaction, some traders will still express FUD over the transaction as the said amount is capable of causing some impact on the market as no one knows the direction of the trend yet.

Quote from: naira on August 16, 2024, 01:28:50 PM

Every time the US government moves Bitcoin to Coinbase, the price of bitcoin in the market drops by 5% within 5 days of the move. And this has happened several times and the pattern is almost the same. However, it is their right to sell it because the US government is one of the 10 largest Bitcoin holders (and that too from confiscations). :o uppss

Are you sure about that or is it just a coincidence? Because the government only moved 10kBTC worth over 600 million USD and this is a very small number compared to bitcoin's daily trading volume of over 30 billion USD, so I don't think the market will be affected by the news small.

Why do we always find a way to blame someone every time the price of bitcoin drops? We just need to simply think that it is just the movement of the market, bitcoin has continuously increased and created new ATH this year, so it is understandable that bitcoin is correcting. Why don't we think like that to make things easier?

No asset or market can increase vertically, bitcoin is no exception and to be able to increase strongly and higher we need a healthy correction. That's what's happening, and we should accept that reality.

Quote from: naira on August 16, 2024, 01:28:50 PM

I highly doubt that this was the reason for the fall in the price of bitcoin. Maybe it was a combination of factors, because during this period they also started paying out the last portion of bitcoins from Mt. Gox, but I think that these are too insignificant volumes for the market to be able to somehow strongly influence bitcoin. Perhaps this will temporarily delay it, but as soon as all payments are made, bitcoin will continue to grow.

Bitcoin is not very important for states, because their budgets significantly exceed the value that they have in bitcoin, and they just sometimes sell it, I don’t even know why, because this money is too insignificant on the scale of the entire country, but if they had simply hold it for long enough, they would have had a chance to get something really significant in the future if bitcoin continues to grow.

Quote from: naira on August 16, 2024, 01:28:50 PM

Yeah, for sure that they have every right to sell specially Bitcoins that they have confiscated.

But I'm not sure if there is a pattern there, a lot of factors to look at when we see the price of Bitcoin going down, most likely, geo-political events and then the CPI every month could be just a few of them and it's not like US selling their Bitcoin.

In any case, it might be a good call to look at how much the US government had, as they are one of the countries that has a lot of Bitcoin in their disposal.

Quote from: peter0425 on August 15, 2024, 05:57:52 AM

US government just moved 10,000 bitcoins to an exchange, coinbase prime. While this might be worrying for others especially after the German government moving their own bitcoins, I advise everyone to remain calm. The 10,000 bitcoins taken in custody from the Silk road case were transferred to an exchange but not with the intention of selling them.

The government has made partnership with Coinbase (https://www.coinbase.com/blog/u-s-marshals-service-chooses-coinbase-to-safeguard-trade-its-large-cap) and has entrusted them to hold seized bitcoins. So if anyone is saying that this is a sign of a market crash or a reason for it then don’t believe them and remain steadfast in your hodling.

I was reading that the US government could move some other bitcoins in the incoming days/weeks but I see this type of episodes as news that could be worth reading for 1 minute and then you can forget about it. Everyday there are millions of people buying and selling bitcoin, they report this info just because behind there is the US government so it's kind of clickbait at the end, if the Average Joe sells 10k bitcoins nobody would care.

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