US Government Dumps Silk Road Bitcoin After DoJ Approval

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The US government sold $6.5 billion worth of Bitcoin that was seized from popular dark web marketplace Silk Road after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) approved the sale.

The DoJ gave the government the green light to sell the 69,370 seized BTC on Dec. 30, citing price volatility as a reason for the approval.

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Silk Road Bitcoin Sell Off Comes Days Before Donald Trump Takes The White House

Hours after receiving the approval from the DoJ, the balance of the wallet that held the seized assets dropped from $6.5 billion on Jan. 8 to zero, according to data from on-chain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence.

The sell off comes just days before incoming US President Donald Trump is set to enter the White House for a second term. Pro-crypto Trump’s inauguration will take place on Jan. 20. Last year, the President-elect said that he would form a strategic Bitcoin reserve with the BTC seized from Silk Road.

Maybe we’ll all get the chance to buy Bitcoin at a discount! https://t.co/d16TnQ9SAl

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) January 9, 2025

Bitcoin bull and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele commented on the government’s BTC sale, saying, “Maybe we’ll all get the chance to buy Bitcoin at a discount!”

BTC Showing Weakness In The Derivative Market As Traders Cash Out At A Loss

BTC was recently rejected by the $100K mark and continued to drop in the last 24 hours. After a more than 1% correction throughout the past day of trading, Bitcoin traded at $94,036.06 as of 1:57 a.m. EST. The crypto also erased its weekly gains.

CryptoQuant noted a substantial drop in funding rates as well, which signals weakness in the derivative market. Some traders were also impacted by the recent correction in BTC’s price. Short-term holders moved 23,200 BTC to exchanges at a loss, a community analyst from CryptoQuant said on X.

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