Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big-picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, April 3rd, and today we are talking about the U.S.

government selling its Silk Road coins. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying

the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to

dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link

at the show notes or go to bit.ly slash

breakdown pod. Hello friends. Well, as you can hear, I am a bit better today, but still recovering.

My voice is still a bit of a wreck. But the world moves on. Bitcoin keeps cruising, and that means we

have a show to do. Where we begin is with an interesting topic, Bitcoin seized by the U.S.

government is on the move.

A wallet containing $2 billion worth of seized Bitcoin was moved on Tuesday.

1,999 Bitcoin worth around $139 million was transferred to Coinbase Prime, presumably to be

sold. The balance of around $29,000 Bitcoin was consolidated into a fresh wallet.

Back in January, the government filed noticed that they would be selling around $130 million worth of Bitcoin, so this could be

the culmination of that previously announced sale. And here it is worth being very clear on this,

as there are many misleading headlines and panic across crypto Twitter. This sale was only 139 million in size,

and there's no expectation that large government sales will happen without notice.

The Bitcoin in this government wallet was seized from James Zong back in 2021

and has been identified as the proceeds of a 2012 Silk Road hack.

This is the notorious case where a hardware wallet was discovered stashed away in a popcorn tin.

Zhang was convicted of wire fraud in 2022, and the government had already sold almost

...