U.S. government moves $288 million in seized bitcoin, ether to Coinbase Prime
- U.S. government wallets moved about $288 million in seized bitcoin and ether to Coinbase Prime on Monday, with ether going directly and bitcoin routed through fresh intermediary wallets.
- The transfers appear to conflict with a March 2025 Trump executive order that directed seized bitcoin into a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and barred its sale.
- While the Coinbase Prime movements may simply be for custody or internal shuffling, they can be viewed as potential preparation for a sale, though they represent only a tiny fraction of the government’s roughly $20.65 billion crypto holdings.
The U.S. government just staged its seized crypto for an exchange, and it took an extra hop to get there.
Wallets tied to the government moved about $288 million in seized bitcoin and ether onto Coinbase Prime over roughly half a day on Monday, blockchain data from Arkham shows. The ether went direct, while the bitcoin took a detour through intermediary wallets first.
The movements are despite an executive order in March 2025 by President Donald Trump, which designated seized bitcoin for the country's Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and said it should not be sold.
A government wallet tied to Ryan Farace, the "xanaxman" case, sent 2,875 BTC worth roughly $178 million to a new address, which forwarded the full amount to a Coinbase Prime deposit wallet minutes later.
A second wallet linked to defunct exchange BTC-e sent 925.512 BTC worth $57 million through the same pattern, in from the seizure address, straight out to Coinbase Prime. Both intermediary wallets were emptied out.
The ether skipped the middle step. A wallet connected to Brian Krewson, the Oracle employee named in a $54 million laundering scheme, sent 30,007 ETH worth $53.09 million directly to a Coinbase Prime deposit address.
Meanwhile, a separate 140.214 BTC moved between government Coinbase Prime addresses and a Coinbase cold wallet, showing on both the inflow and outflow side in a move that is indicative of internal shuffling.
As such, routing the Farace and BTC-e coins onto an exchange doesn't confirm a sale, since Coinbase Prime also handles custody, financing and staging.
Still, exchange movements are widely considered to be transfers in preparation of a sale or exchange to other assets, such as stablecoins, as large holdings of crypto are usually held on cold wallets (instead of exchanges) for security reasons.
The wallets still hold roughly $20.65 billion, including 324,552 BTC, 28,394 ETH and 145.549 million USDT, so this batch is a rounding error against the overall pile.
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