The US government moved 19,800 bitcoins (BTC), worth just under $2 billion, to Coinbase Prime yesterday, leading many to believe it was planning a major sale — potentially sending the price of bitcoin plummeting. The bitcoins that were moved were seized as part of a criminal investigation into the illicit Silk Road marketplace.

The transfer came from a wallet labeled “US Government: Seized Silk Road DOJ Funds” by blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence.

Typically, when governments move large amounts of cryptocurrency to a centralized exchange, it’s an indication that a major sell-off is coming. Often, when governments sell, as the German government did earlier this year , it destabilizes the cryptocurrency market and sends prices plummeting.

So far, however, the news of the US government’s move hasn’t had much of an impact on the market. At the time of writing, bitcoin is down just 2.2% on the day and is currently trading at just under $96,000.

Even after the final tranche of Bitcoin was transferred to Coinbase, the US government continues to hold onto more than $18 billion in cryptocurrency seized in criminal cases.

The transferred Bitcoin is part of more than 50,000 Bitcoin seized by the US government from James Zhong during his arrest in 2022. Zhong later pleaded guilty to wire fraud after the government accused him of illegally manipulating the Silk Road payment system in 2012.

In October, the US Supreme Court cleared the sale of Bitcoin seized from Silk Road, refusing to hear a case over its ownership.

The last known sale of Silk Road BTC by the US government occurred in March 2023, when about 10,000 BTC were sold for about $216 million. In the documents for that sale, the government outlined its plan to sell the remaining Bitcoin during 2023, but no sales have been identified.

In July of this year, the U.S. Marshals Service, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice, announced a partnership with Coinbase Prime as part of its strategy to store and sell “large volumes of popular cryptocurrency assets, known as Class 1 cryptocurrencies.” Class 1 cryptocurrencies are bureaucratic jargon for cryptocurrencies with large market caps, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

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