A wallet marked by Arkham Intelligence as belonging to the United States government moved 12,267 Bitcoin worth about $1.01 billion on Wednesday. Arkham Intelligence is a blockchain analytics
A wallet marked by Arkham Intelligence as belonging to the United States government moved 12,267 Bitcoin worth about $1.01 billion on Wednesday.
Arkham Intelligence is a blockchain analytics platform that tracks and identifies cryptocurrency wallets and onchain transactions.
Data showed the 12,267 BTC, linked to funds recovered from the 2016 Bitfinex hack, leaving a U.S. government-tagged wallet in a single transaction.
HIVE chairman Frank Holmes says U.S. Bitcoin reserve could trigger ‘exponential’ shift (1:17)The funds trace back to the 2016 Bitfinex hack, when 119,754 BTC was stolen from the exchange. U.S. authorities later recovered more than 94,000 BTC after obtaining private keys tied to the stolen funds.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at around $82,500, down roughly 1% on the day.
Source: Arkham IntelligenceThe onchain movement does not by itself indicate that the Bitcoin was sold, and neither the Treasury Department nor the Department of Justice had publicly explained the transfer at the time of writing.
Government wallets can move digital assets for custody, administrative or legal reasons without selling them. Arkham currently attributes about 306,795 BTC, worth roughly $25.3 billion, to U.S. government-controlled addresses.
The transfer comes two days after another government-linked movement. On Oct. 6, onchain tracker Lookonchain reported that a U.S. government wallet transferred 834 BTC, worth about $71.6 million, to Coinbase Prime.
Trump signed an executive order on March 6, 2025, establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve funded initially with Bitcoin forfeited through criminal or civil proceedings.
The order said Bitcoin placed in the reserve “shall not be sold and shall be maintained as reserve assets of the United States.” It also directed the Treasury and Commerce departments to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional BTC.
However, key details about how the reserve operates remain undisclosed.
As of Oct. 2, U.S. government records cited by America.gov did not provide an official reserve balance, custody arrangement or confirmation that Treasury had fully operationalized the reserve. The government site noted that the executive order says the U.S. “holds a significant amount of BTC” without specifying how much.
The House Financial Services Committee advanced the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026 in September by a 28-21 vote, but the bill has not become law.
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