Can the US Marshals' Silk Road Bitcoin Auctions Affect Bitcoin Price?
Just a couple of days back, the United Stated Marshals Service (USMS) announced selling away another large stash of Ross Ulbricht's Bitcoins (50,000 BTC). The statement came amid a 4% value surge on Coin Market Cap, subjecting Bitcoin once again to traders' guesstimates, so can this auction affect bitcoin price? An auction might be the most fundamentally accurate event for Bitcoin trading market - especially in the ways it drives the value. As we see the last two auctions held by USMS, you will notice similar price movements that took place before and after the events. For instance, let's....
Related News
It remains unknown as to how these bidders will value the price per Bitcoin, as it does not have to be the same as the current market price. Another Bitcoin auction will be held by the US government on August 22, 2016. This auction is a lot smaller compared to previous ones, as “only” 2,700 bitcoins will be up for grabs. All of these coins were seized during investigations of Silk Road. Interested bidders must register by August 18 if they want to get their hands on US$1.6m worth of Bitcoin. When the Silk Road platform was shut down by government officials a few years ago, significant....
The crackdown on Silk Road by United States federal agents yielded a fortune in bitcoins along with the founder Ross Ulbricht and two more federal agents as an added bonus on a later date. Ross Ulbricht is currently serving his 20 year prison sentence in one of the US prisons for running the dark internet marketplace which sold anything from drugs to guns for hire (the guns for hire part is still debatable and hasn't been proven by the prosecutors in the case yet). The crackdown on Silk Road was achieved as part of a joint operation between US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US....
The US Marshals Service (USMS) has revealed it is likely to auction off any remaining bitcoins confiscated from convicted Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht sometime in 2015. In total, the USMS seized more than 144,000 BTC (then worth $122m) from Ulbricht in late 2013 along with 29,655 BTC held in wallets on the online black market at the time of its closure. The event will be the final auction involving bitcoins from the Silk Road investigation, with 44,336 BTC ($10m at press time) being offered up to prospective investors. A spokesperson for the USMS told CoinDesk: "We still don't have....
Noted bitcoin investor Barry Silbert has announced Bitcoin Investment Trust will form a syndicate for the auction. The US Marshals Service (USMS) has revealed it intends to auction potentially all of the 144,000 BTC confiscated from Ross Ulbricht during its Silk Road investigation in the coming months, but that it has elected to break up the sales in order to prevent disruptions to the bitcoin market. The USMS announced on 17th November that it will auction off just 50,000 BTC previously owned by Ulbricht, who stands accused of operating the now-defunct Silk Road online black marketplace.....
Updated with comment from Lynzey Donahue, a U. S. Marshals spokeswoman. UPDATE (18th June 21:30 BST): Yelp's Luther Lowe contacted CoinDesk to clarify that he contacted the USMS regarding its auction of Silk Road bitcoins as a private investor, and not on behalf of the e-commerce company. A list of individuals interested in the auction of the 30,000 bitcoins confiscated from the now-defunct Silk Road black marketplace has been leaked via email by the US Marshals Service (USMS), the US government agency confirmed. In a statement to CoinDesk, Lynzey Donahue, a US Marshals spokeswoman,....