Liquid's federation still holds about 4,600 XBT. September's drain never touched it
Every bitcoin that sat in the Liquid federation's peg wallet on Aug 8 also became XBT at the fork. We checked the federation's main address on the XBT chain. It holds about 4,633 XBT, and the September drain on the bitcoin side never happened on XBT.
The numbers
On the XBT explorer, the federation's main peg address (bc1qdlld6ant鈥hwxxr) shows:
- About 4,633.45 XBT across 167 unspent outputs.
- 2,961.38 XBT in 129 outputs from before the fork. These are coins that existed on both chains on Aug 8.
- 1,672.07 XBT in 38 outputs that arrived after the fork.
Figures are as of block ~975,000 and will change as the address moves coins.
What happened on the bitcoin side
On Sep 6, about 4,000 BTC was drained from the federation's bitcoin wallet, according to reporting by TRM Labs, Protos and CoinDesk. About 3,400 BTC was returned the next day, and about 598.5 BTC was kept.
That raised an obvious XBT question. XBT's replay protection is opt-in. A normal bitcoin transaction spending pre-fork coins can be rebroadcast and confirmed on XBT too. We explain how in XBT replay protection, explained.
What happened on XBT
Nothing, as far as the drain goes.
- The Sep 6 drain transaction (8db751a6鈥140) never confirmed on the XBT chain.
- The receiving address from that transaction holds only dust on XBT, about 243,000 sats across 488 transactions.
- The federation address keeps moving coins on XBT. Spends confirmed from Aug 30 to Sep 4, and on Sep 13, 23, 25, 27 and Oct 1. The newest we found is at block 974,953.
Those spends need the federation's signatures, whether they were signed for XBT directly or replayed from bitcoin. Either way, the coins on this address are still controlled by the federation's keys.
Why it matters
About 4,600 XBT is nearly a quarter of the roughly 20,250 XBT that unlocks from the coinbase lock starting around Oct 30. It is one of the largest single XBT balances we know of.
It also shows replay protection working in practice, or at least not failing. Opt-in protection means a bitcoin spend can follow you onto XBT. In this case the drain didn't.
We have no information on what the federation plans to do with its XBT, and we're not suggesting it plans anything. If you hold pre-fork coins of your own, our claim guide covers how to split them safely.