U.S. Government Wallets Move $103M in Seized Bitcoin and BNB — With No Explanation

Wallets that blockchain analytics firm Arkham labels as belonging to the U.S. government moved roughly $103.2 million in crypto on Tuesday, October 6, according to Arkham's on-chain tracking cited by Decrypt. Some of it reached Coinbase Prime deposit addresses — a destination traders often read as a prelude to selling — but no sale has been announced, and the government hasn't said why the coins moved.

The Bitcoin portion was 833.6 BTC, worth about $71.6 million. Per Arkham, it passed through two unlabeled addresses before reaching addresses tagged as Coinbase Prime, the institutional trading-and-custody arm Coinbase operates. Arkham traces about 568.7 BTC to funds forfeited from Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin, the two Estonians behind HashFlare, a mining-contract scheme prosecutors say took in more than $577 million between 2015 and 2019. A federal court sentenced both men in August 2025 to time served (16 months); the Justice Department has said forfeited assets would go toward repaying victims. Another 264.9 BTC, Arkham says, came from the 2016 Bitfinex hack, part of the 119,754 BTC stolen by Ilya Lichtenstein — funds the DOJ argued in January 2025 should largely return to Bitfinex.

The remaining $31.63 million was 40,285 BNB, Binance's token, which moved to an unlabeled address and then to another. Arkham ties those coins to assets seized from Alameda Research, the trading firm tied to the collapsed FTX exchange.

Key facts

• ~$103.2M total moved October 6, per Arkham on-chain data (via Decrypt).
• 833.6 BTC ($71.6M) routed to Coinbase Prime deposit addresses; 40,285 BNB ($31.63M) moved to unlabeled addresses (Arkham/Decrypt).
• BTC breakdown per Arkham: ~568.7 BTC from HashFlare forfeitures, 264.9 BTC from the Bitfinex hack.
• Arkham's September research puts U.S. holdings at 325,000 BTC ($27B), ahead of the U.K. (61,245 BTC) and El Salvador (7,200 BTC).
• A March 2025 executive order created a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve whose forfeited BTC "shall not be sold"; BNB sits in a separate Digital Asset Stockpile (per Decrypt).

The real-world read

A transfer is not a sale — and that distinction is the whole story here. Coinbase Prime is also the government's custodian, so a deposit can mean storage, not liquidation; Decrypt notes a comparable $288 million move in July that led to no announced sale. Reading Coinbase Prime deposits as "selling" is a market-observer convention, not a confirmed fact, and nobody outside the government knows which this is. Worth noting too: the wallet labels and the forfeiture attributions all originate with Arkham, an interested analytics vendor, not with a government filing. And the March 2025 executive order constrains any Bitcoin sale — forfeited BTC in the reserve "shall not be sold," while coins in open cases sit outside it — so the legal room to actually liquidate is narrower than a Coinbase Prime deposit alone implies. The last confirmed large sale, 19,800 Silk Road BTC in December 2024, preceded a 2%-plus price dip within 24 hours, which is why these wallets get watched at all.

This is news coverage, not financial advice.

Sources

• Decrypt (Tier 2, secondary) — reported the $103M movement, the BTC/BNB breakdown, Coinbase Prime routing, and the executive-order context; itself citing Arkham on-chain data and research, DOJ statements, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. No marketing or sponsored material identified.