Members of the U.S. authorities have denied stories that bitcoin forfeited by Samourai Pockets builders was liquidated in violation of President Trump’s government order mandating the retention of government-held bitcoin.
In a quick assertion on X on January 16, Patrick Witt, Government Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Belongings and Deputy Director on the Division of Battle’s Workplace of Strategic Capital, stated 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.
In line with Witt, the bitcoin will stay on the U.S. authorities’s stability sheet as a part of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR).
“We have now obtained affirmation from DOJ that the digital property forfeited by Samourai Pockets haven’t been liquidated and won’t be liquidated,” Witt stated. “They may 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), performing underneath DOJ path, 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 might have been transferred on to a Coinbase Prime tackle 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 via legal or civil forfeiture “shall not be offered” and should as a substitute be retained as a part of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
The chief order was designed to reverse the long-standing follow of liquidating seized bitcoin and to formally acknowledge bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset of america.
The Samourai Pockets case has been carefully watched inside Bitcoin and crypto coverage circles, not solely due to the forfeiture difficulty but in addition as a consequence of broader issues about continued prosecutions of builders of noncustodial software program.
Samourai builders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill pleaded responsible and had been charged in 2025 to conspiracy to function an unlicensed cash transmitting enterprise, a cost critics argue is incompatible with the noncustodial nature of the software program.
These issues have been heightened by what many view as inconsistencies between DOJ actions and steerage issued underneath the Trump administration, together with Deputy Legal professional Common Todd Blanche’s April 2025 memo calling for an finish to “regulation by prosecution” of noncustodial crypto instruments, in keeping 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 trade.
