The BTC seized by DOJ is awarded to Anchorage in a $6.6 million deal to manage the funds as the US Marshals Service reported so let’s read more in our latest Bitcoin news today.
Anchorage sells institutional custody solutions for 60 digital assets including BTC and Zcash so now with the federal authorities routinely seizing BTC and other cryptos, the US Marshals Service awarded a contract to Anchorage to manage the funds. The DOJ branch has a role of tracking down fugitives and it was now given a contract worth over $6.6 million to Anchorage to handle seized digital assets:
“Alongside cash, real estate, art, and other asset classes used in the course of committing a federal crime, the USMS has seized some amount of digital assets in recent years.”
This is surely an understatement. The Marshals Service was responsible for handling billions of dollars worth of BTC and other cryptos either seized by it or other DOJ agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency. It is also tasked with selling it as it already sold the 144,336 seized from Fross Ulbricht’s dark web Silk Road. The sale netted $48.2 million but it is now worth $5.7 billion making seizures a large revenue stream for the agency.
Now the BTC seized by DOJ is awarded to Anchorage thanks to the new deal. Seizing BTC and other assets is far different from getting cash and putting it in a bag and it involves obtaining the private keys of a user which is less a password to the wallet. While the federal officials can provide a court order to gain access to keys held by the exchange with funds in private wallets being trickier. The person whose crypto is it can hand over the private key with the government can also lean on the hackers to attempt o discover the private keys. The USMS started looking for a contractor to take custody and store the assets back in 2018, settling on Anchorage as per the company. Anchorage will be responsible for the storage of the private keys but also for creating new wallets, managing blockchain forks od airdrops as well.
Anchorage competitor BitGo won a similar contract worth $4.5 million in April. Anchorage started off as a crypto custodian and gained a banking charter this year with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency becoming the first charted digital asset bank and its branch now handling custody over 50 assets like Etheruem, Zcash, Bitcoin, and USDC.
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