About 12,267 bitcoin left the wallet holding coins seized from the 2016 hack and went to new, unlabeled addresses. Earlier this week, smaller government transfers went to Coinbase Prime.
The largest U.S. government bitcoin movement of the week headed somewhere different from the ones before it.
About 12,267 bitcoin, worth roughly $1.01 billion, left a wallet that blockchain analysts identify as holding coins the U.S. seized in connection with the 2016 Bitfinex hack, at about 9:33 a.m. Eastern on Thursday. The coins went to new addresses with no public label. No deposit to an exchange was recorded, and the coins have since moved again.
Neither the Justice Department nor the Marshals Service has said anything about it.
How it differs
The transfers earlier in the week, worth roughly $470 million across bitcoin, wrapped bitcoin and USDT, landed at Coinbase Prime addresses. Coinbase Prime holds seized assets for the U.S. Marshals Service. Those transfers drew attention because an exchange-linked destination can precede a sale.
Thursday's transfer did not go to an exchange. Moving coins between wallets can reflect custody changes, reorganization or preparation for a distribution.
Whose coins these are
A court has ordered the government to give the hacked coins back to Bitfinex, and that order covers about 94,643 bitcoin. Thursday's transfer equals about 13% of that pool.
Across all its wallets the government controls roughly 319,086 bitcoin by on-chain count, a figure that shifts depending on how trackers label addresses. Thursday's move was about 4% of that total.
Under the executive order that created the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in March 2025, forfeited bitcoin is to be held rather than sold. Coins being returned to a victim are a separate matter: once they belong to Bitfinex, what happens to them is Bitfinex's decision, not the government's.
The tape
Bitcoin fell after 9:33 a.m. but the sharpest decline came in the 11 a.m. hour, and the price was near $80,600 in early afternoon. The transfer cannot be tied to that move.
Two interpretations
One reading is that this is a step toward handing the coins back to Bitfinex. A wallet-to-wallet transfer with no exchange deposit fits that process more closely than a sale.
Another reading is that supply risk has simply shifted. If coins are returned to Bitfinex, the exchange could choose to sell some of them, and the non-bitcoin assets moved earlier in the week are not covered by the reserve policy.
Next movements
A court filing or agency statement on distribution to Bitfinex, further on-chain movement from the new addresses toward exchanges, or a disclosure from Bitfinex about its plans for returned coins would show whether any of this bitcoin reaches the market.