Members of the U.S. authorities have denied reports that bitcoin forfeited by Samourai Pockets builders was liquidated in violation of President Trump’s govt order mandating the retention of government-held bitcoin.
In a short statement on X on January 16, Patrick Witt, Government Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Property and Deputy Director on the Division of Conflict’s Workplace of Strategic Capital, mentioned the Division of Justice (DOJ) has confirmed that the forfeited digital property “haven’t been liquidated and won’t be liquidated” pursuant to Government Order 14233.
Based on Witt, the bitcoin will stay on the U.S. authorities’s stability sheet as a part of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR).
“Now we have obtained affirmation from DOJ that the digital property forfeited by Samourai Pockets haven’t been liquidated and won’t be liquidated,” Witt mentioned. “They are going to stay on the USG stability sheet as a part of the SBR.”
The clarification follows reporting by Bitcoin Journal earlier this month that raised questions on whether or not the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), appearing below DOJ route, had offered roughly 57.55 bitcoin — value roughly $6.3 million on the time — utilizing Coinbase Prime in November 2025.
That reporting cited an “Asset Liquidation Settlement” and on-chain knowledge suggesting the forfeited bitcoin could have been transferred on to a Coinbase Prime handle that later confirmed a zero stability, fueling hypothesis that the property had already been offered.
The Samourai BTC will keep within the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve
If true, such a sale would have doubtlessly violated EO 14233, which explicitly states that bitcoin acquired by the U.S. authorities by means of felony or civil forfeiture “shall not be offered” and should as an alternative be retained as a part of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
The chief order was designed to reverse the long-standing apply of liquidating seized bitcoin and to formally acknowledge bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset of the US.
The Samourai Pockets case has been carefully watched inside Bitcoin and crypto coverage circles, not solely due to the forfeiture challenge but in addition as a result of broader considerations about continued prosecutions of builders of noncustodial software program.
Samourai builders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill pleaded responsible and were charged in 2025 to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed cash transmitting enterprise, a cost critics argue is incompatible with the noncustodial nature of the software program.
These considerations have been heightened by what many view as inconsistencies between DOJ actions and steerage issued below the Trump administration, together with Deputy Legal professional Basic Todd Blanche’s April 2025 memo calling for an finish to “regulation by prosecution” of noncustodial crypto instruments, in accordance with Bitcoin journalist Frank Corva.
If true, the administration’s affirmation that the Samourai bitcoin stays intact and earmarked for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve will probably be seen as a win for proponents of the bitcoin business.
