30,000 Seized Bitcoins From Silk Road Are Up for Sale!

Posted by: DeepDotWeb

June 12, 2014

As it was published in a press release by the US government:

The US Marshals are preparing to auction nearly 30,000 bitcoins in connection with a civil forfeiture and criminal action brought against Ross Ulbricht and the assets of Silk Road in October 2013 in federal court in the Southern District of New York.

The auction will take place during a 12-hour period on June 27 from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Bids will be accepted by email from registered bidders using a form available from the US Marshals Web page, www.usmarshals.gov/assets/2014/bitcoins.

In order to make a bid in this auction, potential bidders must register between the period of June 16 at 9 a.m. through June 23 at noon EDT and make a refundable deposit of $200,000 via wire transfer from a bank account in the United States. The bitcoins will be auctioned in nine blocks of 3,000 bitcoins and one block of approximately 2,657 bitcoins. The winning bidder(s) will be notified on June 30.

The bitcoins offered in this auction have been ordered forfeited to the United States. In a separate criminal case, Ulbricht has been charged with narcotics trafficking, computer hacking and money laundering offenses in connection with his alleged operation of “Silk Road,” a hidden Web site that was designed to enable its users to buy and sell illegal drugs over the Internet anonymously.

All the bitcoins that were held in an FBI wallet have been transferred to two US Marshals wallets. One wallet is being used for this auction, and the other wallet is being used to hold the remaining approximate 144,342 bitcoins that are part of the civil forfeiture and criminal action brought against Ross Ulbricht and the assets of Silk Road.

The details of the auction can be found here:

FOR SALE
29,656.51306529 bitcoins

THIS NOTICE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL BUT INVITES INTERESTED PARTIES TO SUBMIT A BID FOR PURCHASE. THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS BEING PROVIDED WITHOUT RECOURSE TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OR THE UNITED STATES MARSHALS SERVICE.

THIS AUCTION IS FOR THE BITCOINS CONTAINED IN WALLET FILES THAT RESIDED ON SILK ROAD SERVERS, INCLUDING THE SERVERS ASSIGNED THE FOLLOWING INTERNET PROTOCOL ADDRESSES: 46.183.219.244; 109.163.234.40; 193.107.86.34; 193.107.86.49; 207.106.6.25; AND 207.106.6.32 (“SILKROAD SEIZED COINS”).

THIS AUCTION DOES NOT INCLUDE THE BITCOINS CONTAINED IN WALLET FILES THAT RESIDED ON CERTAIN COMPUTER HARDWARE BELONGING TO ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT, THAT WERE SEIZED ON OR ABOUT OCTOBER 24, 2013 (“DPR SEIZED COINS”).

This explains all the reporting about Bitcoin movements from these 2 seized addresses here and here containing all the coins seized from DRP (Ross Ulbricht) on the Silk Road bust.

The value of these coins at this time is around 18$ million. Along with the notice about the auction, Bitcoins had a noticeable decline in value.

Updated: 2014-06-12