U.S. Government Sends Another $1 Billion in Bitcoin to Coinbase Prime After $770 Million Transfer

U.S. government-linked wallets have moved another 12,267 BTC worth about $1.01 billion, extending several days of large transfers involving seized Bitcoin and Coinbase Prime.

Lookonchain flagged the latest movement on October 8 as the coins left government-labeled addresses. Subsequent tracking by Ember showed the full 12,267 BTC reaching Coinbase Prime, taking its estimate of government transfers into the platform to about 18,482.7 BTC, worth roughly $1.53 billion, during its latest two-day tracking window.

The transfers establish a change in custody and asset location, not a Bitcoin sale. Coinbase Prime provides both institutional custody and execution services, and no U.S. agency has publicly identified the latest movements as liquidations.

Transfers Follow Another $770 Million Bitcoin Movement

The latest batch follows substantial activity earlier in the week.

Galaxy Research traced approximately 9,261 BTC, worth around $770 million, into the government’s Coinbase Prime deposit infrastructure across October 6 and October 7. That included roughly 834 BTC on the first day and another 8,428 BTC the following day.

Nearly half of those coins came from Bitcoin recovered from the 2016 Bitfinex hack, while another portion was linked to known Binance-related seizures. Galaxy also identified 2,456 BTC from addresses it had not previously labeled as government holdings, classifying them as likely seizure-related because they followed the same deposit route into the government-controlled Coinbase Prime infrastructure.

The Bitfinex holdings originate from the federal recovery of more than 94,000 BTC controlled by Ilya Lichtenstein after the theft of 119,754 BTC from the exchange. The Justice Department recovered the coins in 2022 after investigators obtained private keys to the wallet containing most of the stolen funds.

Government crypto wallets have used the same custody route before. In July, approximately $288 million in Bitcoin and Ether moved into Coinbase Prime, followed by another $12.9 million in Bitfinex and FTX-linked assets.

Coinbase Prime Transfers Do Not Confirm Government Sales

The U.S. Marshals Service selected Coinbase Prime in 2024 to safeguard and trade large-cap digital assets managed through federal forfeiture programs. A deposit into the platform can therefore represent custody consolidation, case administration or execution preparation without establishing that Bitcoin was sold.

The distinction is particularly important after the creation of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order states that finally forfeited Bitcoin deposited into the reserve shall not be sold.

The order still allows government digital assets to leave federal holdings when required by a court, returned to identifiable victims, used for law-enforcement purposes or released to satisfy statutory forfeiture requirements. That exception is relevant to Bitfinex-linked assets because the recovered Bitcoin remains tied to restitution and forfeiture proceedings rather than automatically becoming unrestricted reserve property.

The White House said in July that Treasury was still structuring the Bitcoin reserve, leaving custody and asset classification important when interpreting government wallet movements.

Bitcoin was trading near $82,000 on October 9, down from above $85,000 earlier in the week. The decline coincided with the government transfers, but the onchain movements alone do not establish that federal selling caused the price move.

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