US Government Loses Out On More Than $100M Due To Premature Sale Of Bitcoin Stash

The U.S. government, which has become one of the largest Bitcoin holders over the years, missed out on more than $100 million in gains due to the premature sale of its trove.

The U.S. government is considered a Bitcoin whale, with an estimate of around 200,000 BTC, worth approximately over $5 billion.

Recent data analysis made by crypto firm 21.co, based on public filings, estimated that the U.S. government is still in possession of 194,188 BTC, which was worth around $5.3 billion.

The crypto firm underlined that its analyses were "lower-bound estimations of the U.S. government holdings based on publicly available information."

But, the cost was based on Bitcoin's price, which at the time was trading below the $30,000 price level.

In March, the government sold 9,861 BTC worth approximately $216 million at $21,904 per Bitcoin.

The sale was made to Coinbase, one of the world's largest centralized crypto exchange platforms by trading volume, as confirmed by a public filing.

This week, the kind of crypto rallied and its price skyrocketed to as high as $35,200.

If the government had sold the same number of Bitcoin at an average price of $35,000, it could have raked in $345,135,000, which meant it missed around $129,135,000 worth of gain because of the premature sale.

Over the past years, the government has made significant Bitcoin seizures -- 69,369 BTC confiscated in November 2020 from Silk Road, 94,643 BTC from the Bitfinex hack in January 2022, and 51,326 BTC from James Zhong -- the American convicted last year for stealing more than 50,000 Bitcoin from the online black market Silk Road between 2012 and 2014.

On court liquidation orders, the government sells a chunk of its Bitcoin stash via auctions. The most notable sale was made in 2014 when billionaire Tim Draper bought 30,000 BTC from the government.

BTC was trading in the red zone at $34,378.37 as of 7:18 a.m. ET on Wednesday, with a 24-hour trading volume down by 37.34% at $31.25 -- representing a 1.05% decrease in the last 24 hours and a 20.7% gain over the past seven days.

BTC's total circulating supply stands at 19,523,425 BTC, with its value down by 1.49% at a $669.92 billion market cap, according to data from CoinMarketCap.