The U.S. government has over $4.4B in Bitcoin
2022/11/09 10:02
Today, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it seized a little over 50,676.17 BTC (worth roughly $1 billion at today’s prices) in November 2021 from a Bitcoin trader named James Zhong. Zhong obtained the sum by defrauding darknet marketplace Silk Road by exploiting the platform’s withdrawal mechanism in September 2012; he pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud last week, on November 4, 2022.
The DOJ publicized the confiscation as a $3.36 billion haul, which, while correct at the time of the enforcement action, fails to take into account that Bitcoin is now down 69% from its all-time high. Nevertheless, the seizure is notable—it’s the third largest in cryptocurrency history by Crypto Briefing’s count—especially considering the amount of Bitcoin the U.S. government already has under its control.
In addition to the 50,676 BTC seized from Zhong, the U.S. government has already acquired at the very least 163,370 BTC over the last two years, for a grand total of 214,046 BTC, or about $4.43 billion, minimum.
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