{"id":81714,"date":"2025-07-17T17:00:02","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T17:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=81714"},"modified":"2025-07-17T17:00:02","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T17:00:02","slug":"did-the-us-government-dump-170000-btc-marshals-reveal-shocking-bitcoin-holdings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=81714","title":{"rendered":"Did The US Government Dump 170,000 BTC? Marshals Reveal Shocking Bitcoin Holdings"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rumor is rapidly spreading among crypto investors that the US government may have quietly sold off nearly 170,000 BTC, leaving a fraction of its assumed holdings intact. The speculation began after<\/a> the US Marshals Service, in response to a FOIA request, revealed that it currently holds only 28,988 BTC valued at approximately $3.4 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many crypto investors took this disclosure to mean that the federal government\u2019s total Bitcoin reserves had declined from the long-assumed figure of around 200,000 BTC. The claim was amplified across the social media platform X, where even some public figures reacted to what appears to be a massive strategic sell-off by the US government.<\/p>\n

FOIA Request Misinterpreted<\/h2>\n

The confusion of the US government selling the majority of its Bitcoin holdings appears to stem from misinterpretations of the<\/a> specific holdings of the US Marshals Service with those of the entire federal government. The FOIA request that sparked the debate was submitted by<\/a> journalist L0la L33tz, and it accurately reflects that the Marshals control just under 29,000 BTC. However, this only accounts for the Bitcoin under the custody of that particular agency.<\/p>\n

On-chain data from<\/a> blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence provides a very different picture. According to Arkham, the US government as a whole still holds approximately 198,000 BTC, worth over $23.46 billion at the current price of Bitcoin. These coins are distributed across various federal agencies and are not limited to <\/a>the Marshals\u2019 holdings. Nevertheless, the misrepresentation took hold quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even US Senator Cynthia Lummis, who is a well-known advocate of Bitcoin, responded to the rumor, saying<\/a>, \u201cI\u2019m alarmed by reports that the U.S. has sold off over 80% of its Bitcoin reserves, leaving just ~29,000 coins. If true, this is a total strategic blunder and sets the United States back years in the bitcoin race.\u201d<\/p>\n

What If the US Quietly Sold 170,000 BTC?<\/h2>\n

The repercussions on the broader crypto market would be immense if the US government had indeed sold off 170,000 BTC in secret. A sale of that scale would unleash massive selling pressure and cause a strong drop in the price of Bitcoin. This would erode confidence among investors in the wider crypto market and set off a chain reaction of liquidations across other cryptocurrencies. Such a move would not only cause technical breakdowns in price structure but also cancel out the possibility of<\/a> governments around the world holding crypto as a form of strategic reserve.<\/p>\n

Moreover, such a dump would directly contradict the federal policy direction set earlier this year. In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order <\/a>instructing all federal agencies to transfer their Bitcoin and digital asset holdings to the US Treasury. The order formalized the creation of a Bitcoin reserve, which was meant to recognize the cryptocurrency as a national asset. In light of that policy, the notion that the US would quietly sell off<\/a> the majority of its Bitcoin holdings seems highly improbable under the current Trump administration.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $118,360.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A rumor is rapidly spreading among crypto investors that the US government may have quietly sold off nearly 170,000 BTC, leaving a fraction of its assumed holdings intact. The speculation began after the US Marshals Service, in response to a FOIA request, revealed that it currently holds only 28,988 BTC valued at approximately $3.4 billion.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":81715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81714"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/81715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}