White House Aide Says DOJ Did Not Sell Samourai's Forfeited Bitcoin, in Move to Ease Fears

Patrick Witt, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, posted on X that he had “received confirmation from DOJ that the digital assets forfeited by Samourai Wallet have not been liquidated and will not be liquidated." Witt’s message is the clearest public government assertion yet that the roughly 57.55 BTC involved in the case will be held on the federal balance sheet rather than sold into the market.

The Samourai case has been closely watched since November, when prosecutors in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York secured guilty pleas from Samourai’s founders and a forfeiture order that included the bitcoin. The office detailed the convictions and forfeiture in a November press release describing the scale of alleged illicit activity tied to the wallet software.

November Asset Movement

The immediate firestorm came after on-chain investigators observed an asset movement in November that some in the crypto community read as a potential sale, in contravention of President Donald Trump’s March 2025 Executive Order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and barring sale of forfeited bitcoin. The order is published in the Federal Register and spells out that “Government BTC deposited into the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve shall not be sold.”

Witt’s tweet did not supply any DOJ paperwork and merely reported the department's confirmation. 

Custody Transfers, Not A Sale 

The on-chain traces are consistent with custody transfers but do not prove a sale. Witt’s public note, and the DOJ confirmation he cites, effectively resolves the central question for now: the government says it will not liquidate the Samourai coins and will retain them under the SBR framework.