Benzinga - The U.S. government, one of the largest Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) holders in the world, has missed out on potential gains totaling over $6 billion due to premature selling of the cryptocurrency, as per data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode.
As reported by Cointelegraph, the United States government currently holds over $7.2 billion worth of Bitcoin, with a total of 210,429 BTC seized as of Oct. 31, 2023. This is primarily due to the efforts of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), who have confiscated large amounts of cryptocurrency through various legal proceedings.
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Despite being one of the world’s biggest Bitcoin holders, DOJ has often sold its holdings prematurely, missing out on substantial potential gains. Statistics compiled by Jameson Lopp, co-founder of Bitcoin custody firm Casa, reveal that the government has missed out on gains of over $6 billion from its sell-off of 195,092 BTC.
Amid this scenario, billionaire Tim Draper, an original BTC auction bidder, recently criticized the U.S. government for stifling crypto growth, stating that policy failures were “killing the golden goose of Silicon Valley.”
Notably, no single entity other than Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto holds more BTC than the DOJ, even surpassing the largest corporate BTC treasury currently owned by MicroStrategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR), which consists of 158,245 BTC ($5.43 billion).
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