US gov’t told to ‘HODL’ $2B of seized bitcoin via on-chain inscription

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—by Protos Staff

After a weekend rally approaching $70k, bitcoin was sent tumbling almost 5% on the news that over $2 billion worth of US Government-controlled funds were suddenly on the move.

However, as noted by Blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence, one user took it upon themselves to deposit an on-chain plea directly into the government’s wallet, urging them to ‘HODL’ the funds rather than dump the BTC onto the market.

Read more: German government told ‘taxes are robbery’ via Bitcoin inscription 

Arkham has the address labeled as ‘US Government: Silk Road DOJ Confiscated Funds (bc1qj),’ referring to bitcoin seized from James ‘Jimmy’ Zhong in November 2021. Exploiting a bug in the online black market Silk Road, Zhong acquired a total of over 50,000 bitcoins in September 2012.

The plea to ‘HODL’ references a common meme in the crypto community that was sparked by a typo on a Bitcointalk forum post over a decade ago.

Depending on how this year’s US election goes, ‘hodling’ may become US government policy.

In a recent speech to attendees of the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Donald Trump promised to maintain a strategic ‘stockpile,’ despite the fact that a significant portion of the funds already have claims against them.

Read more: Donald Trump ties himself to Bitcoin 

Earlier this month, transfers related to Mt. Gox victim repayments coupled with the German government’s offloading of its own seized BTC led to a nervous period for crypto markets.

The German government’s Bitcoin address was subject to a similar instance of on-chain graffiti when it received an inscription translating to ‘TAXES ARE ROBBERY.’

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