Government-linked $1B Bitcoin transfer reaches Coinbase addresses

A wallet linked to the US government moved 12,267.02 BTC, worth about $1.01 billion, on October 8. The coins eventually landed in Coinbase deposit addresses. Following the billion-dollar breadcrumbs Arkham Intelligence identified the source wallet as tied to the government’s seizure from the 2016 Bitfinex hack. That case remains one of the largest crypto recoveries tied to a single theft. The coins did not travel straight to Coinbase. They first hopped through a series of unlabeled addresses before reaching deposits that Arkham tags as belonging to the exchange. Those destination addresses connect to Coinbase Prime, the exchange’s platform used mainly for institutional custody. The October 8 move was the biggest piece of a wider pattern. Between October 6 and 8, government-linked wallets moved somewhere between 17,795 and 21,500 BTC, valued at approximately $1.5 to $1.78 billion at current prices. Galaxy Research separately tracked 9,261 BTC, roughly $770 million, flowing to Coinbase Prime between October 6 and 7. Roughly half of the transferred coins connect to Bitcoin seized in the Bitfinex case. Other portions trace back to forfeiture proceedings, including those tied to the FTX...