The auction will not include any of the Bitcoin acquired from the computers and accounts of Ross William Ulbricht.
Looking to get your hands on a gold rush of Bitcoin for less than the valuation price? You might be in luck. According to an article published on Friday by NBC News, the U.S. Government is auctioning off about 30,000 Bitcoin at the end of this month. The auction will be held on June 27 by the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bitcoin supply will be sold off in nine blocks of 3,000 and one block of 2,657, each of which will go to the highest bidder. The collective total of the 10 auction blocks is $17.4 million based on current Bitcoin valuation.
Not that interested parties can expect the Bitcoin vault to retain that value. Bitcoin is a famously unstable currency because it is not backed by conventional currencies, meaning that the $17.4 million valuation of the 30,000 Bitcoin the government currently holds could easily double or lose half its value in the two weeks prior to the auction. In fact, Bitcoin’s value has already fallen based on the news of the government auction, tumbling 6.74 percent on Friday alone.
The decrease in trading rates is partially as a result of the origins of the Bitcoin auction supply. The fortune dates back to last fall, from an FBI raid of Silk Road, an online black-market of sorts where criminals bartered drugs, money laundering services, and other illegal criminal items and activities. As an untraceable currency, Bitcoin was the standard payment method on Silk Road. Thus, the coins to be auctioned later this month were collected from different account wallets on the Silk Road servers.
The auction will not include any Bitcoins acquired from the computers and accounts of Ross William Ulbricht, who owned, operated, and moderated Silk Road under the codename “Dread Pirate Roberts.” This fall, Tthe FBI arrested Ulbricht on counts of narcotics trafficking, hacking conspiracy, and money laundering. Many of Ulbricht’s Bitcoins were seized and placed into government accounts as “civil forfeiture and criminal action” against Ulbricht and Silk Road overall.
Leave a Reply