The USA Division of Justice (DOJ) has reportedly liquidated tens of millions of {dollars} in bitcoin (BTC), regardless of a presidential order expressly prohibiting such gross sales. This could possibly be interpreted as a direct problem to White Home coverage, as mirrored in a report revealed on January 5, 2026.
The US authorities would have bought belongings valued at $6.3 million, as a substitute of together with these funds as a part of the newly created bitcoin Strategic Reserve with confiscated digital belongings.
The funds in query come from Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, co-founders of cryptocurrency mixing service Samourai Pockets. In August 2025, each pleaded responsible to conspiracy to function an unlicensed cash transmission enterprise. As a part of their settlement with justice, the developer couple transferred roughly 57.5 BTC to the US Marshals Service (USMS) final November, as revealed in a report by Bitcoin Journal.
Nonetheless, the digital path means that these cash have been by no means saved. Paperwork included within the report below the title “Asset Liquidation Settlement” point out that the funds have been meant on the market.
The information on chain affirm that the funds have been despatched to a pockets linked to Coinbase Prime, which at present reveals a steadiness of zero, which means that the liquidation would have already been executed.
If the sale has been accomplished, this transfer locations the Division of Justice in an uncomfortable place vis-à-vis the chief department. It’s because on March 6, 2025, President Trump signed Government Order 14233. As reported by CriptoNoticias, this measure is a part of a pillar of his financial coverage that establishes that any BTC acquired by way of prison confiscation “won’t be bought” and should be built-in into the nationwide Strategic Reserve as an asset of long-term worth.
As famous within the Bitcoin Journal report, there was no authorized obligation to promote these belongings. Underneath present forfeiture statutes, the federal government has the facility to protect property in its unique kind. The choice to transform them to money it seems to have been an administrative selection, not a judicial mandate.
To this point, neither the Division of Justice nor the Marshals Service have issued official statements to make clear whether or not this transfer was an administrative error or an indication of inner resistance towards the brand new US digital asset coverage.
Nonetheless, the motion of funds admits one other studying. It could possibly be a easy administrative process between places of work and never a last sale in the marketplace. One other blind spot is the character of the seizure, because the case doc means that prosecutors may have handled these funds as a nice derived from the confession of the accusedand never as a standard confiscation. The main points of this authorized ambiguity may be discovered within the indictment doc, which sheds mild on the destiny of the belongings.
The case takes on particular relevance because of the historical past of independence of the Southern District of New York (SDNY), the prosecutor’s workplace that led the case towards Samourai. The SDNY has beforehand proven outstanding autonomy, shifting ahead with this course of regardless of a Division of Justice memo issued in April 2025, which prompt stopping pursuing cryptocurrency pockets and mixing providers for the actions of their finish customers.
