Members of the U.S. authorities have denied stories 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 quick assertion on X on January 16, Patrick Witt, Govt Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Property and Deputy Director on the Division of Struggle’s Workplace of Strategic Capital, stated the Division of Justice (DOJ) has confirmed that the forfeited digital belongings “haven’t been liquidated and won’t be liquidated” pursuant to Govt Order 14233.
In accordance with Witt, the bitcoin will stay on the U.S. authorities’s steadiness sheet as a part of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR).
“We’ve acquired affirmation from DOJ that the digital belongings forfeited by Samourai Pockets haven’t been liquidated and won’t be liquidated,” Witt stated. “They are going to stay on the USG steadiness 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 course, had bought 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 information suggesting the forfeited bitcoin could have been transferred on to a Coinbase Prime deal with that later confirmed a zero steadiness, fueling hypothesis that the belongings had already been bought.
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 felony or civil forfeiture “shall not be bought” 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 intently watched inside Bitcoin and crypto coverage circles, not solely due to the forfeiture problem but in addition as a result 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 below the Trump administration, together with Deputy Legal professional Normal Todd Blanche’s April 2025 memo calling for an finish to “regulation by prosecution” of noncustodial crypto instruments, in line 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.