Hassan Maishera
TL;DR
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BTC dropped to the $60k region after performing excellently on Tuesday.
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The poor performance came after the U.S. Government moved about $240 million worth of seized BTC to a Coinbase Prime address.
BTC Dips to $60,600 as Bulls Relinquish Recent Gains
The cryptocurrency market turned bearish on Wednesday after recording healthy gains on Tuesday. Bitcoin’s price dropped below $61k, losing more than 1.5% of its value over the last 24 hours.
At press time, Bitcoin’s price is $60,644 and could plunge lower if bears take full control of the market. The poor performance came after a wallet tagged to the U.S. Government moved about $240 million worth of seized BTC to a Coinbase Prime address.
The movement of the bitcoins sparked concerns amongst traders that the U.S. government could dump the coins in the market. Arkham Intelligence revealed that the wallet moved roughly 3,940 bitcoins originally seized from a Silk Road vendor.
Update: US Government Sends $240M BTC to Coinbase Prime
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) June 26, 2024
The US Government just moved 3,940 BTC ($240M) to Coinbase Prime.
This BTC was originally seized from narcotics trafficker Banmeet Singh, and forfeited at trial in January 2024.
Transaction: https://t.co/hZ1CwqWCmF pic.twitter.com/9t6k8Wdizq
In 2022, the government seized roughly 50,000 bitcoins related to the Silk Road website. On April 2nd, the bitcoins were worth roughly $2 billion and the government moved them to another wallet, putting pressure on the market.
Other leading altcoins are also trading in the red thanks to Bitcoin’s poor performance. BNB and XRP are both down by more than 1% while Dogecoin and Cardano have lost roughly 3% of their values in the last 24 hours.
Toncoin’s TON is the only cryptocurrency in the top ten currently trading in the green zone. TON is up by 1% so far today and is trading at $7.59 per coin. With Bitcoin and most altcoins currently underperforming, the total cryptocurrency market cap has declined by 1.3% and now stands at $2.24 trillion.
