According to the service, on Wednesday, February 28, 1 BTC was transferred from one address, and then 2,817 BTC worth about $172.74 million were transferred to unknown addresses. On the same day, 0.01 BTC was transferred from another address as a test transaction, after which 12,267 BTC was transferred in the amount of $748.46 million. The total value of the transferred bitcoins from the two wallets was about $922 million.
These two addresses contained funds that the US government confiscated from hackers who hacked the Bitfinex crypto exchange in 2016. In February 2022, American law enforcement officers arrested Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan, seizing more than 94,000 BTC worth $3.6 billion from them.. They pleaded guilty in August 2023 to money laundering conspiracy.
There are suggestions that the US government could transfer these bitcoins for subsequent sale. At the beginning of the year, the US Department of Justice announced that it plans to sell 2,934 BTC seized from the closed darknet site Silk Road.