Last of the bitcoins from Silk Road investigation is about to be auctioned off. The United States Marshal Service, the federal agency that was in charge of the seized bitcoins will be holding the auction on Thursday.
The investigation into Silk Road by a joint task force comprising of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service. Silk Road was one of the leading deep web marketplace where people could use bitcoin to buy contraband articles and drugs. The Silk Road investigation resulted in the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road and confiscation over 144000 bitcoins from him. and another 29000 bitcoins were confiscated from the wallets belonging to Silk Road’s wallets.
The US Marshal Service as already conducted three auctions and the one scheduled for Thursday will be the fourth and final one involving 44341 bitcoins. Being American is one of the prerequisites for those who want to participate in this upcoming auction. Those who satisfy the requirements and are interested in participating in the auction have already registered with the USMS yesterday. According to the schedule provided by USMS, the auction will be starting on November 5 at 8 am to go on for 6 hours till 2 pm.
Some of the buyers from the previous auctions are listed below.
Auction 1 – The first auction saw the venture capitalist Tim Draper buy $17 million worth of bitcoins. He bought almost all the bitcoins that were up for auction at that time.
Auction 2 – The second auction had Bitcoin Investment Trust lapping up most of the bitcoins.
Auction 3 – Cumberland Mining emerged as the winner in the third auction by bidding for most of the bitcoins. There is not much information available on the company. However, it is speculated that it may have been a front for either Bitfinex or Coinbase – two leading exchanges in the United States. itBit, another New York based bitcoin exchange bought close to 3000 bitcoins in the auction.
Auction 4 – The fourth and final auction scheduled to happen in the next couple of days. Let us see who will be willing to buy the whole stash this time.