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- The U.S. Marshals Carrier has confirmed it at still holds honest correct 28,988 bitcoins, far now no longer as a lot as the 200,000 most thought of as it held
- This disclosure follows the launch of an inner asset checklist obtained by skill of a Freedom of Data question of
- The balance has been liquidated, flying within the face of the U.S. authorities’s decent-Bitcoin stance
The U.S. Marshals Carrier (USMS) holds honest correct 28,988 bitcoins, far fewer than became beforehand assumed. Responding to a project laid down by Bitcoin Journal Chairman David Bailey, an investigative journalist going by the pseudonym L0la L33tz on X requested the determining from the USMS by skill of a Freedom of Data (FOI) question of, incomes herself a $10,000 bounty within the course of. The resolve marks a necessary carve rate from earlier estimates and rather undermines President Donald Trump’s pledge that seized bitcoins would stir into the nation’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Journalist Posts Asset Sheet
The surprisingly low number became printed when L0la L33tz answered to Bailey’s project:
Hi there @DavidFBailey, man of your observe, looks similar to you owe me $10,000 https://t.co/4zE0pugqpr pic.twitter.com/LSYpkheJGH
— L0la L33tz (@L0laL33tz) July 16, 2025
The spreadsheet listed the total addresses preserving USMS bitcoins, collectively with a positive total of 28,988.061677 BTC held by the company as of its last update. The resolve also confirms what blockchain intelligence community Arkham Intelligence has reported within the past about the authorities’s Bitcoin holdings; Arkham has reported U.S. authorities wallets consolidating and offloading good amounts of bitcoins in recent months.
Implications for Federal Crypto Coverage
The revelation confirms that the Marshals Carrier, lengthy accountable for managing seized resources from crypto crime instances, now no longer holds the enormous trove of bitcoins it beforehand did, which once topped 200,000. The company managed tens of thousands of BTC confiscated from instances attractive Silk Avenue, ransomware assaults, and fraud schemes, but it undoubtedly rather undermines the U.S. authorities’s goals for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve; when it became confirmed in March, AI and crypto czar David Sacks said that the fund would be made up of bitcoins already obtained by felony and civil asset forfeiture court cases. If the USMS has sold almost 170,000 of these coins, that doesn’t bode smartly for the reserve, which would perchance well perhaps be $20 billion had they now no longer been liquidated.
Whereas some are understandably worried by the low amount left within the kitty, some identified that there would perchance be extra now no longer yet accounted for:
Ship an FOIA to the DOJ and IRS as smartly. The 28,988 BTC resolve is good the USMS’s still, liquidatable half, while the comfort is held by other companies and/or reserved for victims. Right here is being sensationalized as if USG sold off the comfort en masse, when it belongs to victims.
— Shifu Dumo (@dumimo) July 16, 2025
Both plan, the number held by the reliable custodians is shockingly low and would perchance well well end result in issues that the U.S. authorities is now no longer standing by its Bitcoin pledge.