US transfers $240 million in Silk Road Bitcoin to Coinbase
After 3,940 bitcoins were taken from a Silk Road vendor by US authorities, the price of bitcoin dropped by 2%.
As soon as the US government moved $240 million worth of cryptocurrency to a Coinbase Prime Address, there was pressure on Bitcoin (BTC) to sell. The 3,940 BTC that Coinbase received, according to Arkham Intelligence, was first taken from Silk Road merchant and drug dealer Banmeet Singh during a January trial.
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Ross Ulbricht founded Silk Road, a dark web bazaar, in 2011. Ulbricht was taken into custody by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2013, and Silk Road was shut down. Later, in 2022, about 50,000 BTC were seized by American legal enforcement. Additionally, authorities have taken Bitcoin from the Silk Road multiple times.
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On April 2, a wallet connected to US officials transferred $2 billion in Bitcoin, igniting similar rumors about selling at the moment. Together with BTC, the entire cryptocurrency market experienced a slight decline after the Wednesday transaction.
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Authorities use a sued exchange to force a Bitcoin sell-off.
The United States government unloaded $216 million worth of Bitcoin on Coinbase Prime, the company’s institutional platform, in March 2023. Although Coinbase has been under regulatory scrutiny for potential infractions and illicit business practices, the platform is the chosen off-ramp mechanism for government liquidations.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), chaired by Gary Gensler, accused Coinbase of running an unauthorized broker-dealer and an unregistered securities exchange.
Coinbase refuted the accusations and presented counterarguments in court, charging the SEC with withholding registration procedures and clear regulations for cryptocurrency companies. The platform continued to meet demands from the US authorities related to the sale of Bitcoin even as Coinbase and the SEC engaged in legal disputes.