Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The United States (US) government is known to be one of the largest Bitcoin holders in the world. In fact, they are said to have illegal Bitcoin assets amounting to US$ 5 billion or around Rp. 78 trillion.
However, unlike other crypto ‘whales’, the US government does not care if the value of a digital currency rises or falls.
That’s because Uncle Sam’s stash of around 200,000 Bitcoins was confiscated by cybercriminals and dark web markets, aka ‘darknet’, according to reports Wall Street Journalquoted from SlashdotTuesday (17/10/2023)
The US government is said to store Bitcoin assets offline on encrypted, password-protected storage devices in hardware wallets controlled by the Department of Justice, Internal Revenue Service, or other agencies.
What the federal government does with its Bitcoin has long been a topic among crypto traders. Because, any sale has the potential to increase prices or cause other ripple effects in the US$ 1 trillion digital asset market.
The US has been notoriously slow in converting Bitcoin deposits into dollars. The reason is, the Bitcoin pile is more a byproduct of a long legal process. So, the goal is not to save it for strategic economic planning.
“We don’t play with the market. Basically we are determined by the process [hukum] that we run,” said Jarod Koopman, executive director of the IRS’s cyber and forensic services section, which oversees all activities focused on cybercrime.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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