DOJ cleared to sell $6.5B Silk Road Bitcoin – No more U.S. BTC reserve?
Wallets holding the seized BTC from Silk Road were intact at the time of writing.
- DOJ has reportedly approved the sale of seized 69K BTC, which Trump planned to repurpose for strategic reserve.
- No seized BTC had been moved from key wallets as of this writing.
Crypto Twitter has been abuzz with speculation that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) greenlighted the sale of 69K Bitcoins [BTC], worth $6.5B, seized from Silk Road.
The update was first shared by media publisher DB News, citing a U.S. official.
In an X (formerly Twitter) post dated the 9th of January, the publisher stated,
“The U.S. Govt has been given the greenlight to liquidate 69,000 BTC ($6.5B) from Silk Road, an official confirmed to DB News today. Interesting situation less than 2 weeks away from the new admin who vowed to not sell.”
What’s next for U.S. BTC strategic reserve?
Market sentiment has always been impacted whenever updates on the U.S. government’s movement of BTC surface.
Given that President-elect Donald Trump pledged to form a U.S. BTC strategic reserve (SBR) using the above seized BTC, potential actions are even more scrutinized by the market.
Some community members speculated that the seized BTC had already been sold through a ‘credit line.’ One user claimed,
“The “seized BTC” that was meant to be used for a ‘strategic reserve’ [under the Trump administration] was sold off already, with a credit line sanctioned by Coinbase.”
Some flagged the update as FUD. In fact, Arkham data showed no balance decline in wallets linked to seized BTC at press time.
However, if true, the sale could happen before Trump’s presidential inauguration. According to some market experts, even such a scenario wouldn’t massively detour BTC.
Glassnode founders clarified that such a sale wouldn’t happen through exchanges but through OTC (over-the-counter) markets. So, it won’t suppress the king coin.
On his part, CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju downplayed the panic, reinforcing that the potential $6.5B sell-off could be smoothly absorbed by the market. He said,
“Last year, $379B entered the market based on realized cap—roughly $1B per day. The U.S. govt selling $6.5B could be absorbed in just a week. Do not panic.”
All said, prediction sites like Polymarket and Kalshi priced a +40% chance of a U.S. BTC strategic reserve in 2025.
However, at press time, the odds of that happening in the first 100 days of the new administration declined from 34% to 27%.
