Earlier yesterday we wrote an article about the upcoming bitcoin auction scheduled to happen on the 5th of this month. The auction is being organized by the United States Marshal Service to liquidate the remaining bitcoins confiscated from Silk Road and its creator Ross Ulbricht.
During the auction over 44000 bitcoins will be up for bidding over a period of 6 hours. The auction is slated to start at around 8am tomorrow and go on till 2pm. One of the prerequisites for bidding is for the bidders to be American and they have to be registered with the US Marshal Service. the registration ended few days ago.
There are many bitcoin companies who have registered themselves for the auction. According to the recent report published by Coindesk, a cryptocurrency news publication we can expect Digital Currency Group, which is a subsidiary of Genesis Trading to participate and bid at the auction. Other bidders will include Binary Financial – a bitcoin hedge fund.
These bitcoins were confiscated by the US Marshals along with Baltimore Task Force, in charge of the investigation into Silk Road and Ross Ulbricht. Baltimore Task Force was an interagency task force comprising of federal agents from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service. The investigation resulted in the arrest of Ross Ulbricht and closure of Silk Road. Millions of dollars’ worth of bitcoins was seized during the investigation from wallets belonging to Silk Road and from Ross Ulbricht’s personal computer.
The publication also reported that it attempted to contact the companies and individuals who participated in the previous auctions. The participants either declined to answer or did not respond to the press requests. However, it is still speculated that many of the previous bidders will be present at the auction tomorrow as well.