The US government is one of the largest Bitcoin holders in the world, with more than 200 thousand Bitcoin, held in several wallets.
For context, the largest BTC holder in the world at present, is Satoshi Nakamoto himself, with a total of 1 million BTC.
However, according to recent reports, the US Government may have just upped their game, after taking control of a particularly large wallet.
According to recent reports, the US Government may now have control over the fifth largest Bitcoin wallet in the world, containing nearly a hundred thousand Bitcoins, worth nearly $2.5 billion.
According to a recent post from PeckShield, a massive BTC wallet, ranked the 5th largest Bitcoin wallet in the world, may now be under the control of the US government.
This wallet is so large, that it contains 94,643 BTC, worth a whopping $2.46 billion.
PeckShield mentioned in the post, that this new seizure address is directly linked to the 2016 BitFinex hack.
How is this wallet linked to the hack?
PeckShield mentioned that in 2017, approximately 120,000 Bitcoin was stolen from BitFinex.
Soon after these funds were stolen, the perpetrator's address transferred some ~567.5 $BTC to the address that was seized.
This creates a very visible link between both addresses and is exactly why the seizure occurred
According to the currency rates at the time, the U.S. government held 205,515 bitcoins, which were worth $5.66 billion in Q1 of 2023.
A large portion of these bitcoins were seized in several cases including the seizure of bitcoins from James Zhong last year, and the Silk Road BTC seizure from "Individual X" in November 2020.
However, according to recent reports, 35-year-old Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan admitted to planning the first 2016 cyberattack on Bitfinex, and pleaded guilty in a Washington DC court, according to CNBC.
And until the couple admitted to the charges and pleaded guilty in court, nobody knew who had stolen the BTC from Bitfinex.
The US Government holding more than 200,000 Bitcoin at the moment according to Glassnode, poses some very disturbing possibilities for Bitcoin's Price.
Let's see what this means.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission's stance on crypto is no secret.
The government agency has gone after XRP, Cardano, AXS, BNB, ATOM and a host of others. They have also gone after several crypto-affiliated individuals and entities like Brad Garlinghouse and Ripple Labs, CZ and Binance, Brian Armstrong and Coinbase, as well as Bittrex, Poloniex and BitConnect, among others.
From this, it is easy to see that the US Government isn't a big fan of crypto.
One can only imagine what will happen if it decides to sell all 200,000+ of its Bitcoin, and have more than $5 billion worth of liquidity suddenly flood the market.
The bear market that follows would be catastrophic and will be fueled further down by waves of panic selling, as Bitcoin continues to sink further down.
As it turns out, former president of the US and 2024 contestant, Donald Trump is a huge fan of crypto.
According to a recent report from the nonprofit organisation, Ethics Watchdog, Trump has more than $2.8 million worth of cryptocurrency stored in an Ethereum wallet.
All of this is despite his repeated public condemnation of crypto.
His stance on crypto should be interesting to see if he indeed wins the 2024 re-election bid and becomes president of the US once again.
Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis is also a presidential contestant and is even more open about his support for crypto.
DeSantis is even quoted during a Twitter spaces campaign, as saying that "people should be able to buy and hold bitcoin".
DeSantis even moved earlier this month, to prohibit CBDCs (central bank digital currencies), stating that Bitcoin represents a threat to "central planners" who want to "control" everything.
A few weeks ago, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., another presidential candidate, also confirmed in a Twitter Space, that he did own bitcoin (BTC) after denying it on several previous occasions.
In all, the future of crypto in the US will be an interesting one, whichever way things turn out, as widespread adoption becomes more certain.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.