THE GOVERNMENT’S SEIZED BITCOIN JUST WENT TO COINBASE PRIME — THE RESERVE ORDER SAYS “SHALL NOT BE SOLD” — NOBODY IN WASHINGTON HAS SAID WHY IT MOVED

On October 6, 2026, wallets that Arkham labels as U.S. government moved 833.6 seized bitcoin. Within hours the coins reached addresses Arkham tags as Coinbase Prime deposits. About 568.7 BTC came from the HashFlare forfeiture of Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin. About 264.9 BTC came from the 2016 Bitfinex hack case. No agency has said why the coins moved.

The March 6, 2025 executive order says bitcoin in the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve “shall not be sold.” The same order lets seized coins go back to “identifiable and verifiable victims of crime.” A transfer is not a sale, and it may be a refund. But coins at a broker are coins someone else can move. Seized keys are still somebody else’s keys.

In Moscow, the Bank of Russia put Sberbank and VTB on its first register of crypto custodians. Sberbank plans bitcoin custody from December 1. Paying for goods with crypto inside Russia is still banned. The state bank may hold your bitcoin, but you may not spend it. That is custody without ownership.

Europol published a report on quantum computing and cryptocurrencies on October 7, 2026. It calls wallets “the primary point of exposure to quantum threats.” The fix is old advice. Hold your own keys, and do not reuse addresses. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $83,244.