The US Government Missed Over $17,2B Potential Profits Selling BTC

Key Points

• Over the past decade, the US Government sold 195,000 BTC for $366 million in 11 transactions.
• Today, these BTC coins would be worth over $17 billion, revealed David Sacks.

David Sacks revealed some heartbreaking Bitcoin calculations made in collaboration with X’s Grok. He analyzed how much the US Government lost by selling its Bitcoin.

Over $17 Billion in Losses Due to Bitcoin Sales

In an earlier post on X, Sacks said that over the past decade, the US Federal Government sold approximately 195,000 BTC for around $366 million.

He said that if the government had held the coins, the amount would be worth over $17 billion at today’s prices.

Sacks concluded his message by saying that this is the cost that American taxpayers had to pay for lacking a long-term strategy.

To get these answers, Sacks asked Grok the following questions:

• When did the Government sell Bitcoin in its possession?
• How much did it sell?
• What was the price and proceeds at that point in time?
• How much would the sold BTC be worth today?

Grok’s strategy involved thinking via DeepSearch, exploring BTC sales and dates, calculating totals, resolving discrepancies, calculating the current value of BTC, recalculating the opportunity costs, and adding up the differences.

Main Conclusions of Bitcoin Sales Analysis

Here are the main conclusions of the analysis :

• The US Federal Government sold BTC on multiple occasions, with sales recorded from June 27, 2014 to March 14, 2023.
• The total amount sold was about 195,091.75 BTC.
• The total proceeds from the sales were almost $366,5 million.
• If the Government had held until today, March 6, the sold BTC would be worth around $17,5 billion.
• The US Government missed a profit of over $17,2 billion by selling its BTC.

Bitcoin’s price varied between $270 and $70,000 in the 11 transactions made by the US Government.

At the moment of writing this article, BTC is trading above $89,000.