Key findings

  • Wallets labelled as US government by Arkham moved 12,267 BTC, worth about $1.01 billion, on Thursday.
  • The coins left a wallet holding funds seized in connection with the 2016 Bitfinex hack and went to new, unlabeled addresses.
  • No exchange deposit was recorded for this transfer, according to Arkham data reported by CoinDesk.
  • A day earlier, about 3,200 BTC ($264 million) and $119 million in USDT reached Coinbase Prime deposit addresses, CoinDesk reported.
  • The government still holds about $25.5 billion in crypto, by Arkham’s count, so Thursday’s move equals roughly 4% of it.

A Billion Moves Sideways

The transfer was reported by CoinDesk and Decrypt, both citing Arkham, a blockchain intelligence firm that labels wallets by owner. On-chain tracker Lookonchain flagged the same 12,267 BTC at 14:32 UTC. The coins went to one new address, with a second transaction to another.

Should either new address send coins to a known exchange deposit address, that would be the first on-chain sign of an intended sale. Until then, the pattern matches custody reorganisation: coins moving between wallets controlled by the same owner.

Prime Deposits Are Ambiguous

The earlier leg looks different. About 3,200 BTC and $119 million in USDT went to Coinbase Prime deposit addresses on Wednesday, from wallets tied to the FTX/Alameda and Bitfinex seizures, CoinDesk reported. Lookonchain counted 4,632 BTC, 119 million USDT and 750 wrapped BTC over a 10-hour window to 00:55 UTC Thursday. The difference reflects different time windows and wallet sets.

A Coinbase Prime deposit is not proof of a sale, because Coinbase Prime also provides custody. A confirmed sale would need either an official statement or on-chain evidence of the coins being traded. Neither has appeared. In July, about $288 million in seized bitcoin and ether took a similar route to Coinbase Prime, CoinDesk reported.

Related: ETF Desk on Wednesday’s outflows

Policy Says Hold

A March 2025 executive order directs that bitcoin forfeited to the government be placed in a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and not sold. No statement from the Justice Department or the US Marshals Service about this week’s transfers had been found at the time of writing.

If an official confirms a custody migration, the transfers would read as housekeeping. If any of the coins are confirmed sold, that would raise questions about how the order is being applied to these holdings.

Reading the signals on US government bitcoin

The state: a large transfer with no exchange footprint, and smaller, ambiguous prime-broker deposits a day earlier. The near-term test is where the new addresses send coins next. The benign trigger is an official custody explanation or the coins staying put. The bearish trigger is any deposit from these wallets to a trading venue during a week in which bitcoin has already traded near $80,000.

Data as of 8 Oct 2026, 18:00 UTC; latest points may be revised. Entity labels are heuristic and may not capture all exchange wallets. US government attribution is Arkham’s and has not been confirmed by the US government.

Produced by the Crypto Watch Desk newsroom using AI tools. This article is for information only and is not investment advice.