U.S. BTC transaction to Coinbase causes investor turmoil

A BTC transaction is causing turmoil in the crypto community: Last Wednesday night, the U.S. government apparently moved 10,000 Bitcoin, worth $584 million, from the Silk Road seizure to Coinbase Prime.

Blockchain analytics service Arkham Intelligence linked the transaction in an X message to a wallet reportedly owned by U.S. authorities. That wallet still holds Bitcoin worth $12.2 billion.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is trading at $58,430, with the price falling more than 4.12 percent in the past 24 hours. Compared to last week, the BTC price is still 2.35 percent in the plus.

Just two weeks ago, a similar BTC transaction caused panic among some crypto investors, who feared a new wave of selling after the sizable BKA sales in early July and the Mt. Gox payoffs.

Silk Road was an online marketplace on the Darknet where users could buy drugs, weapons and other illegal services. U.S. authorities put an end to this billion-dollar business and arrested founder Ross Ulbricht in 2013.

Often BTC deposits on a crypto exchange indicate that the digital assets will soon be sold. In this case, the transaction could also have been done for storage reasons.

Last month, the U.S. Marshals Service, a division of the Department of Justice (DOJ), announced a new partnership with Coinbase Prime to "store and trade" cryptocurrencies.

The last confirmed sale from the Silk Road seizure occurred in March 2023, when the U.S. government sold 9,861 Bitcoin for $216 million at the time.