The U.S. government shifted $288 million in seized Bitcoin and Ethereum onto Coinbase Prime on Monday, on-chain tracker Arkham showed, reviving speculation that Washington could be preparing to sell crypto it has pledged to hold.

The transfers, spread over about half a day, included around 3,800 BTC worth $235 million and about 30,000 ETH worth $53 million, drawn from several criminal cases. The Bitcoin came from funds seized from Ryan Farace, a dark-web dealer known as "Xanaxman", and the defunct exchange BTC-e, and was routed through intermediary wallets before reaching Coinbase Prime. The Ethereum, tied to a $54 million money-laundering case involving Oracle employee Brian Krewson, went straight to a deposit address.

Custody or cashing out?

Large holders typically keep coins in cold storage, so moving them draws scrutiny, and the government has offered no public explanation for the transfers—leading some sections of the market to view them as “a signal for a potential sell-off,” Tim Sun, Senior Researcher at crypto exchange HashKey, told Decrypt.

The U.S. Marshals Service selected Coinbase Prime in 2024 to custody and trade forfeited digital assets, and it also handles financing and staging—so the transfers could simply indicate that the government is moving assets into managed custody. Thus, Sun explained, it’s not yet clear whether the inflows are "in preparation for a sale or simply for the consolidation and custody of seized assets."



The never-sell rule

The transfers come in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order, which created a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and declared that government Bitcoin deposited into it "shall not be sold." Only Bitcoin that has "completed the final forfeiture process" can be moved into the reserve and shielded from sale, Sun said, and even then the order allows exceptions for coins a court directs toward law enforcement or victim restitution. The coins moved on Monday came from active criminal cases and are handled apart from the reserve. "The market needs to distinguish between Bitcoin held in the reserve and the U.S. government's broader balance-sheet holdings," Sun said.

Ethereum sits outside the rule entirely. It falls under a separate Digital Asset Stockpile that the Treasury can manage within its legal authority, giving the government what Sun called "greater freedom of disposal."

The scrutiny is sharpened by how unsettled the reserve, which exists only by executive order, remains. Bills to codify it with a 20-year holding rule have stalled in Congress, and the Treasury and Commerce departments are still contesting who controls the assets. Arkham still tracks U.S. government wallets holding $20.6 billion in crypto, including 324,552 BTC—among the largest state crypto holdings anywhere, against which the $288 million is little more than a rounding error.

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