The Executive Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets has confirmed on X that no government BTC was sold, despite recent reports.
Patrick Witt posted an update on X regarding the sale of 57.55 BTC forfeited by Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and Will Lonergan Hill.
Did the SDNY violate Presidential orders?
Cryptopolitan reported earlier this month that the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) had sold approximately $6.3 million worth of Bitcoin. The Bitcoin was handed over by Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill as part of a guilty plea.
On November 3 last year, on-chain data recorded a transfer of the seized 57.55353033 BTC from a government-controlled address (bc1q4pntkz06z7xxvdcers09cyjqz5gf8ut4pua22r) to a Coinbase Prime deposit address.
The Coinbase address soon showed a zero balance, causing many analysts to believe that the assets had been sold for cash, directly violating Executive Order 14233, signed by President Trump in March 2025.
The order specifically mandates that any “Government BTC” acquired through criminal or civil forfeiture “shall not be sold” and must instead be held in the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR).
Patrick Witt, the Executive Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, took to X (formerly Twitter) to clarify the situation.
“We have received confirmation from (the) DOJ that the digital assets forfeited by Samourai Wallet have not been liquidated and will not be liquidated, per EO 14233. They will remain on the USG balance sheet as part of the SBR,” he said.
Will the SDNY continue to defy the White House?
Despite Todd Blanche’s memo from May 2025 that instructed the DOJ to only go after cases where there’s evidence of “knowing and willful” criminal intent by the developers themselves, the SDNY went ahead to successfully secure convictions for Roman Storm, a co-founder of Tornado Cash. In August 2025, a jury found him guilty of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
The SDNY also sentenced Rodriguez and Hill in November 2025 to five and four years in prison, respectively. President Trump told reporters in December last year that he is “looking into” a pardon for Rodriguez.
Tim Scott, the Senate Banking Committee Chair, was forced to postpone a high-profile hearing for the CLARITY Act after Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, announced on social media that he would no longer be supporting the current draft.
Armstrong said he is concerned that the bill gives too much authority to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over stablecoins and DeFi protocols.
And without the backing of the largest U.S. crypto exchange, the bipartisan consensus led by Senator Cynthia Lummis has begun to fracture. Despite this, she has so far stated that lawmakers are “closer than ever” to a final deal.
The current draft of the CLARITY Act includes rules that ban platforms like Coinbase from offering interests or rewards on stablecoins.
The ban is a major win for traditional banking platforms, which claim that high stablecoin returns were taking away trillions of dollars from their sector.
If these issues aren’t resolved, the bill could fail to pass before the 2026 election cycle starts and freeze all legislative processes.
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