US government trades Aragon’s ANT tokens for ETH ahead of planned token burn

The U.S. government has sold off tokens seized from Sam Bankman-Fried’s defunct hedge fund Alameda Research, according to Arkham Research. This is the first time the wallet, which holds approximately $974,000 worth of cryptocurrencies, has moved funds in nearly two years. 

Onchain data show that government officials offloaded over 82,000 ANT tokens seized from the firm using the AragonDAO ANT token redemption address . ANT is Aragon’s governance token. 

In November 2023, the Swiss non-profit Aragon Association voted to dissolve itself and sell 86,343 ETH ($155 million at the time) in exchange for ANT tokens. Users have until Nov. 2, 2024, to swap their ANT tokens.

After redemption, all ANT tokens will be burned, as “from this moment forward, there is no purpose in continuing to hold ANT.”

The move began when an address beginning 0xb0692 funded the U.S. government’s wallet, which was used to segregate funds appropriated from Alameda. So far, the U.S. government has received 209.199 ETH worth $556,000 from AragonDAO. 

Before that transaction, the government’s address received 0.003 ETH ($7.03) from Coinbase, likely to pay for gas fees.