Senator Lummis reacts: A ‘strategic blunder’ for t

Worth pointing out that Arkham data estimates that the U.S.government holds about 198K BTC (worth $23 billion) as of July 2025.

This is according to the government’s custody wallets it tracks. In other words, the USMS should have the 198K BTC. 

But others were quick to point out that none of the BTC has moved on-chain. 

In fact, security researcher, Tay Vano, stated that about 69.37K BTC confiscated from Silk Road was yet to be forfeited (made state property).

Hence, it hasn’t appeared in USMS custody, and the government could still be holding more than 28.9K BTC.

However, Bailey doubted this and said that the U.S. probably sold part of the holdings via swaps, leaving no on-chain trace. 

“I think it is conclusive they’ve been selling without creating onchain footprint”

One of the on-chain analysts, Sani, agreed that the only large custody firm that could handle such swaps was Coinbase. Interestingly, the firm doubles as the USMS custody provider.  

Most of the U.S. government’s BTC holdings were from forfeitures and seizures by the FBI and other investigative services.