US Marshals To Sell Off More Silk Road Bitcoins At Auction

Silk Road was a website where all sorts of illegal and illicit items could be purchased. To keep the buyers and sellers from being tracked, many of the purchases on the site were made using Bitcoins. When the site owner was captured and his personal stash of Bitcoins confiscated, there was a huge amount of money to be made. Last January prosecutors and Ross Ulbricht agreed that the US Marshals could sell Bitcoins found on computer gear Ulbricht owned.

A similar auction was held by the Marshalls five months ago where about 30,000 bit coins were sold. The latest auction will sell off 50,000 bitcoins worth around $19 million. The auction will give bidders a six-hour window on December 4 to submit a sealed bid for the coins.

The massive amount of Bitcoins has been broken into several lots with the first series having ten blocks of 2,000 coins each. The second series is ten blocks of 3,000 coins each. Bidders are allowed to participate in auctions for both blocks.

Bidders can also bid on multiple blocks of bitcoins. To participate in the auction bidders have to register and registration began on Monday at 9am and will end on December 1 at noon. The total number of Bitcoins found on the computer equipment seized is 173,991. The remaining Bitcoins will be sold at a later date.

SOURCE: NYTimes