US Government Shifts $12.36M in ETH, USDC and USDT to Coinbase After Monday’s BTC Move – CoinDesk

The transfer follows Monday’s movement of roughly 3,941 BTC to Coinbase Prime, giving the government two straight days of onchain activity from wallets tied to past criminal seizures.

Six Transactions, One Batch

Tuesday’s activity broke down into six separate transactions, all logged within the same short window. The sender in every case carries the label “U.S. Government: Bitf,” Arkham’s shorthand for a Department of Justice-controlled wallet linked to funds seized from the 2016 Bitfinex hack.

Image source: Arkham Intelligence.

The largest transfer sent 5,939 ETH, worth $11.15 million, to Coinbase Prime. A second ETH transaction for $11.26 followed the same destination. USDT moved in a similar pattern: $296,710 to Coinbase Prime, paired with a $10 transaction to the same address.

USDC took a different path. The government sent $901,005 in USDC to an address beginning with 0x7D7C1C4c, one Arkham has not yet attached to a named entity. A $10 USDC transaction preceded it.

A Test Before Every Transfer

Each asset moved twice to its destination: once as a token amount of $10 or $11, then as the full sum. That pattern held across all three assets and both destinations, pointing to a deliberate operating procedure rather than isolated transfers.

Sending a small amount first lets whoever controls the wallet confirm the receiving address is correct before committing the full balance. Crypto transactions can’t be reversed once confirmed, so the practice is standard for anyone moving large sums, government or otherwise.

Two Destinations, Two Likely Purposes

Coinbase Prime is an institutional custody and trading platform. Deposits there typically come before either a sale or a shift into custodial storage, since Prime serves as the standard on-ramp exchanges use for large trades on behalf of institutional clients.

The USDC transfer broke from that pattern. Rather than routing to Coinbase, it went to the unlabeled address, which Arkham has not yet identified. That could mean a transfer to another government custody account, a different exchange not yet tagged in Arkham’s system, or an intermediary wallet.

A Small Fraction of a Much Larger Stack

The U.S. Government entity Arkham tracks across 618 addresses holds roughly $21.22 billion in crypto, up 3.75% over 24 hours. Bitcoin accounts for about $20.91 billion of that total, or roughly 98.5% of the entire portfolio.

Against that backdrop, Tuesday’s $12.36 million transfer represents about 0.06% of total holdings. The scale suggests a routine or case-specific transfer rather than the start of a broader liquidation.

What the Portfolio Holds

Beyond bitcoin, the government’s tracked holdings include $145.25 million in USDT, $48.42 million in wrapped BTC, $41.86 million in ether, and smaller positions in BNB, USDC, DAI and wrapped ETH. Further down the list, the portfolio includes 3,692 ZEC worth $2.03 million, along with smaller SHIB, GNO, and RLC balances.

U.S. government crypto portfolio (only the top 14 assets under management).

The presence of wrapped and DeFi-linked tokens, along with a privacy coin like ZEC, points to a portfolio built from many separate seizure cases rather than a single coordinated treasury. Seized wallets typically reflect whatever assets the original target held, which explains the mix of a major bitcoin position sitting alongside niche tokens.

Tuesday’s transfers give the public a rare onchain look at how the government handles crypto seized in criminal cases, offering visibility that traditional asset forfeiture rarely provides.