Bitcoin Forum

Its going to be a silent auction.  So you submit 1 bid. Highest wins.  No bidding war.

So if you were a major player bidding on 3,000 coins what would be your bid if you really wanted these coins?  Im trying to think what a typical winning bid will be.

Im thinking $700 per coin.

Hard to say .. but 700 sounds about right.

the US MARSHAL/Treasury are asking for $200K CASH  up front in order to even register for this auction. At current market prices I say someone with big bucks and balls can snatch them all up for $400 each maybe a little more or a little less. I imagine they are looking for a buyer to take them all, or at minimum will be selling in $200k chunks...not sure never been to FED auction, and much less to one involving the sale of BITCOINS....wowser!!

so if you don't win any auctions, they keep your $200k? that's pretty fucked up.. you'd have to at least post 1 bid at market value -200k.

From here (http://"http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/us-marshals-are-selling-2965651306529-bitcoin/372770/")
The term block here being a happy, yet slightly confusing coincidence.

The 200k upfront is to prove that you are liquid enough to actually pay if you win the auction. You will get the money back if you don't get any coins. I expect them to go below market value. Probably around $400/coin or so

$700 per coin would be way too much, you could buy more coins off exchanges since they are lower than $700. I buy them at least 10% under market price to fetch a decent profit.

It really depends on the buyers I think. Could make an argument for both below or above market value...

Below market:
- Day of, whales can come out and start buying up coins to jack the price (so as to get the most amount of fiat inflow from the auction), then immediately after the auction is settled, dump the price back down. That way, when these newly acquired coins from big buyers come to market, they'll be cheaper to buy back....

Above market:
- It's an auction offering a large sum to be bought from a reputable source all at one time. It's also a silent auction. These are factors a buyer (especially if it's an institutional investor) may be paying a premium for.

We have a prediction on our site about this but no one has placed anything yet; am really hoping we see one big bet from an insider  8)

https://www.betmoose.com/bet/silkroad-coins-will-be-sold-above-market-value

I would imagine the blocks will be sold off between $1.05M-$1.499M.
Wouldn't think they will get any bid at that large of a level for more than $500 per btc. and lowest winning bid could possibly see the $350 per btc range.

Will be interesting to see the final numbers...

I would say that would be a pretty big discount.

If they get too much of a discount then they would have a bigger incentive to simply sell the coins on an exchange

Prices on auctions always go significantly cheaper than market value, look at homes in foreclosure auctions for instance... It is highly unlikely that the price per coin hours for market value.  The only items that go for close to market value or higher, are rate things like art pieces that are one of a kind...

If I wanted to be certain I would win would go for 725 dollars a coin
The extra 25 dollars being the buffer between everyone else saying 700 is the high
Of course if we all knew in advance it would be a live auction not a silent auction

Legit coins, minimum effort, bought as a medium to long term investment - I suspect at least 1.5x market to secure them.

I seriously doubt the average per coin sale price is going to be higher than what you can pick them up for on an exchange...if anything they should be fairly well discounted from current market price at the time of the sale.

My Guess: $515 (presuming BTC is still around $560-$570 by then)

10-15% below market price on the day of the auction

i have no idea why people are saying in the 700's, especially with bitcoin being in the mid 500's today. how the f does that make sense to pay more than the market value + provide a 200k deposit?

 maybe a bit lower, 600-ish range.

dont you think its a bit weird that bitcoin price dropped, just when whales are gonna start bidding for those coin ?
kinda longshor, but dont u think its possible they dropped the market price, just so that they could get better price on that auction..

I don't think any bids are going much higher than $500. They have the benefit of exclusivity, which means less competition and less bids to fight against.

That would be my guess also, but you never know.  Bitcoin is still a small enough market to be subjected to manipulation by whales, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some foul play that week...

If it is anything like what Feinstein pulled with selling the post office buildings then expect the bitcoins to go to insiders for atleast half their value.


The husband of US Senator Dianne Feinstein has been selling post offices to his friends, cheap.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/going-postal/Content?oid=3713528



Feinstein's husband, Richard C. Blum, is chairman of C.B. Richard Ellis, or CBRE, the real estate firm hired in 2011 to serve as the exclusive agent to the Postal Service, selling facilities from post offices to plots of land worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

the real estate company undersold Postal Service properties, shortchanging the Postal Service on tens of millions of dollars.

In 2011, for example, the real estate firm sold a Seattle post office building assessed at $16 million for only half that


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/12/dianne-feinstein-postal-service_n_4423045.html

My guess is 250 to max. 300$ per coin. It would be more clever to auction them
in smaller chunks, like 100 or 250 coins each.

But I'm really curious how the auctions will end  :D

Only reason I think maybe over market value is because none of these big buyers could buy thousands of coins off a exchange without  the price going through the roof. 

^^^ This

Would you give all your personal information to the government in exchange for bitcoins that they'll be monitoring specifically?

Welcome to the modern world: Investors are used to giving their info to regulated investment brokers. Many Americans wouldn't have a second thought about filling out a "legit" Gov't application.



Yes, 10-15% (or maybe even 50%) ABOVE the market price on the BTC exchanges.
Many wealthy people are hesitant to send large amounts of money to our currently available unregulated exchanges.

we need to know the going rate on bitcoin at the end of the month to have a better idea what people are willing to spend on them coins. maybe the whales will tank the value of bitcoin to get better prices.

I bid the future existence of the Federal Reserve.

That would certainly be interesting to see large bitcoin holders sell to crash the price then purchase at a discount at the auction

Why is it a silent auction?  How does that serve the taxpayer?

i don't think this money is going back to the taxpayers.. it's probably going into the FBI or some other government organization.

Probably going into seizing more bitcoin efforts.

At first I "tradefarted" on the news of the auction. Immediately, I began talks with other much more savvy investors than me. Pretty much everyone with more experience indicated that the news of the sale is bullish for bitcoin.

First, it fully establishes that bitcoin is an item of value that has obviously matured since the seizure. The Feds are selling it for Federal Reserve Notes for crying out loud! It also establishes bitcoin as property (they do not auction cash), which I happen to think is very tax advantageous for average US citizens. Second, there is no way this much coin could move on the open market without effectively raising the market price substantially (if only for a few moments). A $2,000,000USD buy on Bitstamp would raise the price to about $645 or 10+% right now. That's about what 3000 coins would go for right now. Third, long term speculation on bitcoin is pretty f'ing bullish.

All that said, if the capital was available; I'd bid on all ten blocks of coins ranging from %25 under market to %25 over market at the time of the bid. Most of the big players will be employing this strategy.

I've read many people believing that this is an open auction with an auctioneer. It's not. It is a silent auction with bids submitted by email. There are ten blocks. You post a $200,000 deposit and submit the bid(s) by email. You get one bid per block. There are 10 blocks. 3000 coins per block on 9 of the blocks, and two thousand something or other on the tenth. If you post the $200,000 deposit, you can bid on all 10 blocks. If you win a block or more than one block, you had better be able to pony up very quickly or risk losing your $200K.

A tradefart is when a hodler sells on news that he/she has not yet analyzed. The tradefarter then buys back at market price upon realizing that they are an idiot. A wet tradefart is when the short term assumptions come true only to be counterbalanced by the reality of the market conditions.