This Week in Bitcoin: BTC Plunges as US Gets Go-Ahead to Sell Silk Road Billions

It was all going so well.

Bitcoiners were feeling the euphoria Monday when the biggest digital coin was trading above $100,000 per coin for the first time so far in 2025, at one point touching a high of $102,290, according to CoinGecko. 

But then America’s central bank had to do what it always does: remind markets that it still runs the show. The Federal Reserve on Wednesday released its December meeting minutes, showing that its members were likely to pause on cutting interest rates in 2025 over concerns about sticky inflation brought about by the incoming Trump administration. 

More bad news came on Friday, when jobs data coming out of the world’s biggest economy showed that unemployment was low, which economists generally agree means more inflation. The asset dropped as low as $91,914 on Friday. 

It has since recovered somewhat, and is now priced at $94,400 per coin. Over a seven-day period, it has dropped nearly by 4%. It’s now significantly below its December 18 all-time high of over $108,000. 

Calling it a volatile week is an understatement. Here’s a look back at the biggest Bitcoin news.

American ETF action

After a day of monster inflows to the American ETFs on Monday, investors started pulling cash out of the vehicles—and fast. 

On Wednesday, speculators pulled the most amount of money since December from the funds. Data from Farside shows that a total of over half a billion was cashed out that day—leading the price of the coin to dip. 

Other factors are impacting Bitcoin, but the biggest ETFs trading on the world’s biggest stock exchanges in the world’s biggest economy are naturally having an significant impact.

Silk Road sale?

Over 69,000 Bitcoin seized from the Silk Road dark web marketplace—that’s $6.5 billion worth now—could be headed to sale after a U.S. judge refused to block the forfeiture of the assets.

This doesn’t mean that the assets will immediately be sold, as there are more steps ahead before reaching that potential outcome, but that kind of sell pressure could impact Bitcoin’s market price in the future.

It also throws a wrench in the plans of folks pushing for a national Bitcoin strategic reserve, such as President-elect Donald Trump and Senator Cynthia Lummis, as seized assets could make for an ideal starting point for a proposed U.S. stash. But we’ll see how quickly they move on establishing such a fund, and whether Silk Road’s billions are liquidated before that happens.

More states consider reserves

On Friday, two more states—North Dakota and New Hampshire—made moves towards considering a strategic Bitcoin reserve. New Hampshire’s filed legislation doesn’t specifically mention Bitcoin, but BTC is the only asset that currently meets its market cap requirements. Meanwhile, North Dakota legislators introduced a resolution that serves as a precursor to a potential bill.

Such plans would allow the local government coffers of the states to hold the coin as a reserve asset, with the hopes of, simply put, combating inflation and getting richer. Right now, a total of five states have such a plan under formal consideration: Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and New Hampshire.

More public companies want Bitcoin 

It’s not just U.S. states, either: Publicly traded companies are also keen to add the biggest virtual coin to their balance sheets. 

Social media marketing company Thumzup Media announced Tuesday that it bought roughly $1 million in Bitcoin, while aerospace and defense company KULR Technology Group added another $21 million in Bitcoin to its balance sheet. 

And on Friday, Nasdaq-listed spirits firm Heritage Distilling announced a Bitcoin “HODL” strategy—subject to approval from the board—that will allow it to both hold Bitcoin and take BTC payments from customers.

Bitcoin landfill saga ends

In one of the longest-running Bitcoin sagas, an engineer who lost a hard drive full of Satoshi-era mined coins received some bad news: a UK court dismissed his bid to use a team to find the “digital gold” in a Wales landfill.

James Howells lost 8,000 Bitcoin—today worth $756 million—when his ex-girlfriend threw out the device (on his orders), and has been in a legal battle with the local authority since to dig through the dump and recover the hard drive.

Despite the setback, Howells told local media he wouldn’t give up just yet—and may even launch a new cryptocurrency based on the lost coins. 

Edited by Andrew Hayward