US Government Wallets Sent 9,261 BTC to Coinbase Prime on Oct. 6 and 7, Galaxy Research Says

Washington's Bitcoin stash is bigger than anyone can pin down, and it just moved.

Galaxy Research tracked 9,261 BTC, worth roughly $770 million, flowing from government-linked wallets to Coinbase Prime on Tuesday, Oct. 6 and Wednesday, Oct. 7. That was 834 BTC on the first day and 8,428 BTC on the second. Galaxy ranks Oct. 7 as the government's ninth-largest Bitcoin outflow day since 2013.

No sale has been confirmed.

Coins from wallets nobody had labeled

Nearly half the coins came from the 2016 Bitfinex hack recoveries, according to Galaxy, with another portion tied to Binance seizures. Then there were 2,456 BTC from wallets Galaxy had never identified as government-controlled.

Galaxy's reasoning is simple. The coins landed in the US government's Coinbase Prime deposit address, so the firm says it now assumes they were government seizures. That link has not been independently established.

That deposit address has taken in 11,567 BTC since December 2025, Galaxy found. About 6,406 BTC came from recognized government wallets and roughly 5,160 BTC from unlabeled senders. Both groups followed similar deposit patterns dating back to April.

Nobody agrees on the total

BitcoinTreasuries puts the government's holdings at 328,372 BTC, down about 1,635 BTC this year. Galaxy's count is 319,086 BTC, down from a peak of 352,587 BTC on Aug. 13, 2024. Trackers as of Oct. 7 ranged from 319,000 to 328,000 BTC.

That gap of roughly 9,000 BTC dwarfs the 1,635 BTC decline everyone is trying to explain. Nothing confirms why holdings fell. Court-ordered returns to victims and changes in how trackers attribute wallets are both possible, and neither has been verified.

The 328,372 figure is a tracker estimate, not an audited Treasury statement showing every coin has been transferred into the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

At $82,000 to $83,000 per coin in early October, the estimated value is $26 billion to $28 billion. That is down from a peak near $40.7 billion in late October 2025. The drop is mostly price movement on the coins still held, not coins leaving.

What the executive order does and doesn't say

President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14233 in March 2025. It created the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, directed Treasury to set up an office controlling its custodial accounts, and barred the sale of Bitcoin deposited into the reserve. It also told Treasury and Commerce to develop budget-neutral ways to acquire more.

The government did not buy any of these coins. All of it comes from law enforcement seizures and forfeitures. Major sources include roughly 94,000 BTC from the Bitfinex case, 50,676 BTC from James Zhong, and about 69,370 BTC from the Silk Road "Individual X" case.

In October 2025, the Justice Department filed a civil forfeiture complaint covering about 127,271 BTC tied to Prince Group founder Chen Zhi. A complaint is not a final judgment.

Galaxy's own breakdown shows how unsettled the ledger is. It says 71% of the balance sits in two buckets that are "not settled government property": the Lubian coins and the Bitfinex recoveries, which include about 94,643 BTC. Bitfinex-related coins remain subject to competing legal claims.

Custody move or sale prep?

Coinbase provides institutional custody and trading services to the US Marshals Service, which has replaced much of the old auction process for seized crypto. Coinbase Prime offers custody, brokerage and over-the-counter trading. A transfer there can mean storage. It can also be the first step of a trade.

The pattern is not new. In early July 2026, government-linked addresses sent about $288 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum to Coinbase Prime, including assets associated with Ryan Farace, BTC-e and Brian Krewson. Those moves also set off speculation about liquidation. No sales were confirmed then either.

Counts of the October activity differ. Crypto Briefing puts government-linked movement in the first week of October at about 17,733 BTC, nearly double Galaxy's 9,261 BTC to Coinbase Prime. The figures have not been reconciled.

Congress has not settled the rules

On Sept. 16, the House Financial Services Committee advanced the American Reserve Modernization Act, or ARMA, by a 28-21 vote. The bill would formalize Treasury custody, impose a minimum 20-year holding period for qualifying government Bitcoin, and require public cryptographic proof-of-reserve reporting. It does not authorize open-market purchases.

No congressional authorization exists yet for a large-scale buying program, and the full House has not voted on ARMA.

The next data points are concrete. Watch for more large deposits to the Coinbase Prime address, any official Treasury or Marshals accounting that explains the 1,635 BTC decline, and whether a floor vote on ARMA is scheduled.