US government moves $470M in seized Bitcoin and Tether to Coinbase Prime
The US government has moved $470 million in Bitcoin and Tether from seized funds to Coinbase Prime, according to a post on X tracking the activity.The appearance of Tether in the mix makes this move stand out. Earlier reported government transfers did not include USDT, even though government wallets hold significant amounts of the stablecoin.Coinbase Prime is the institutional platform that the US Marshals Service (USMS) selected in July 2024 to handle custody and trading of seized digital assets.The Marshals Service is the agency responsible for managing assets forfeited in federal criminal cases.On-chain data from Arkham Intelligence has tracked several earlier shipments. In mid-July 2026, approximately $288-297 million in seized assets landed on Coinbase Prime.Most of that batch was Bitcoin: between 3,800 and 3,941 BTC, valued at $244-250 million at the time. Some of those wallets were tied to cases involving Ryan Farace and Brian Krewson.On October 7, 2026, roughly 833.6 BTC, valued at $71.6 million, went to Coinbase Prime addresses. About 40,285 BNB, worth approximately $31.6 million, moved in the same window. Both were part of a larger $103 million asset shift.In March 2025, President Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The order set a no-sale policy for seized BTC.That policy covers Bitcoin specifically. Tether is a stablecoin designed to hold a steady dollar value, so moving it raises different questions than moving Bitcoin does.A transfer to a custodian is also not the same as a sale. Coins can be moved for consolidation, safekeeping, or administrative handling without ever hitting an order book.Estimates put US government-held crypto between $20-28 billion, including around 324,000-325,000 BTC.The Tether portion deserves particular attention. Selling or redeeming a dollar-pegged stablecoin would not create the kind of price pressure that dumping Bitcoin would, but it would signal that the government is actively managing parts of its crypto portfolio that sit outside the reserve's no-sale protection.For the Bitcoin portion, the key question is whether the reserve policy holds in practice. Any evidence of seized BTC actually being sold would raise questions about how firmly the no-sale policy is being applied.As the Marshals Service's chosen custodian since July 2024, Coinbase Prime sits at the center of one of the largest government crypto operations in the world.