Bitcoin Forum

I personally think they went for a high premium, but I know there are strong opinions on both sides.  I havent seen a poll for this specifically so I thought I would post one...

are we actually going to see any trustworthy "results"? i wasn't sure whether prices would be disclosed through official channels, and bidders/winners may be subject to non-disclosure requirements.

by the time we find out, the price will probably have either gone up or down. Whoever found out ahead of us will have used this info to their advantage. Best bet is to keep an eye on exchange volumes.

$631

I have a feeling either the winner will come forward and disclose the price, or the winning bid amount will be made public by some other means .... this whole scenario is way too built up in the public consciousness now for the result not to be revealed...but thats just me

there's multiple lots, and so multiple winning prices, right? so perhaps a range is more relevant here. i still think the only info we might get is from losing bidders -- even then, i think they may be subject to non-disclosure. we may get nothing here.

thats a good point...argh, maybe you should make a new poll?  something that includes the # of lots going for which $ price etc.

oh well, at least this one can give a general idea of what people think these coins are worth

Sources say $789

False. My sources say sub-$550, and I know some pretty important people.  ::) :P

Think about it: They auctioned off 30,000 BTC.

If anyone wanted to buy 30,000 BTC on an exchange in one go they would drive the price into the sky.

Likely those coins were purchased at a higher price than spot price.

It's not that simple. One could easily say:

"If anyone [USG] wanted to sell 30,000 BTC on an exchange in one go they would drive the price to $0"

This sort of logic gets us nowhere.

Good point.

I bought them at market value

When is the auction and how are they running it ? onsite, online etc?
I am guessing they wont stuck them up on ebay :|

auction is over already, results on monday

They put a 500 btc sell wall at $600, so they want to win the auction for less than 600.

Think about this: The Second Market Syndicate alone, one of the dozen bidding parties, wants 48,000 bitcoins. The Feds are only selling 30,000. Remember, only one of the dozen bidding parties.

In this case, buying pressure exceeds selling pressure.

Yeah, except the government will be auctioning off many more coins than this in the future. This won't be the only chance that big investors get. And there is always the OTC market...

Many are low ball offers like this user participating:
"I'm participating with a group through SecondMarket for the auction.  We semi-low balled our bid."
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.msg7545476#msg7545476

Why did Barry Silbert not include the average bidding price of the syndicate auction results ? ::)

at least im not the only one who thinks 1200+!

Nice try. This market is going up in a couple of days. One dude, semi-low balling means nothing. In fact, we dont even know what it actually means, so it means less than nothing.

I can't see them selling for more than $600.

Hundreds of bidders. And you can't fathom that just 1 of them bid over $600.

Well I can sure as hell fathom it.

if under 600.. then a really bad sign. you cant buy that many coins without moving the market. 

i bet the price of bitcoin will be within 3% of the purchase price before the moment the actual paid price news comes out

I am revising my winning bid price expectation to $620 to $650. Why?

(1) They'd have to pay at least some premium for a big block, anyways;
(2) Wealth creates more wealth and given spread and market price differentials this is more true for arbitrageurs and high or pseudo-high frequency traders today (I say pseudo because this would probably hold with such a large pool even without speed advantages and dark pools); AND
(3) Most importantly, there is a value multiplier effect for every dollar over market that these sell for. For instance, if these sell for $610 people will be ecstatic and the market price will probably jump past $620 because everybody will be ecstatic for dodging the bullet. $620 probably brings us close to the interim high of $666. You probably get diminishing marginal returns on this idea past $620 or $625 but I am just pulling a number out of my backside (admittedly).

In short, they'd be doing themselves a favor by accounting for the market's response to their winning bid -- at least I think. Then again, people have told me today that my posts are bizarre so who knows.

You are totally right. Although I do not think the bidders were probably savvy enough to realize this or to take a bid on that chance alone.

I do however think there were some bidders who:
A) wanted to win because they are competitive
B) wanted government "sanctioned" coins
C) where willing to pay for convenience and transparency

 I would assume that there would be tons of bids in the 600-700 range, so to be safe the winners would only consider bidding 700+

700+? Considering you could market buy 3000 coins on Bitfinex right now up to 632, I kind of doubt it's necessary to try to buy one of these lots that high. Don't you think?

I would look at it as a way to try and be sure that I was way above what I thought the competition was bidding at (If I really really wanted them)

does the auction ended already ?

when are the results?

No it doesn't. There was one vendor, the USMS, who chose to sell at auction, avoiding the slippage that would have occurred at an exchange.

There were multiple bidders whose sealed bids were priced to compete with each other for coins that would cost much more at an exchange.

I think Smoothie's right about them going higher than spot.

No, we wont.  The FAQ make clear:
10. What information about the auction process or results will the USMS release?
 
The USMS will contact the winning and losing bidders directly. The USMS will not publicly
release any information pertaining to the auction process or results.

Source: http://www.usmarshals.gov/assets/2014/bitcoins/faqs.pdf

So all we will know is what the winning and losing bidders choose to disclose.

http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/news/bitcoin-price-move-insider-information-todays-auction/2014/06/30

Thanks for the link mate :)

Why would someone pay 200 bucks more than the market price?

Market depth, slippage, verified seller, free publicity if you win, etc...

Why does someone care if all of the coin comes from sequential blocks or not? Would you pay a premium because they're in an orderly fashion on the blockchain? As soon as I was in receipt of the coins I'd move them to an address where I knew that the private key was secure.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick about this?

this, i can't understand the people who think they sold for under $600

the results will not be published, but the other reasons are valid.

also, much faster than exchanges, most exchanges will not allow you to cash out 3000 bitcoins at once as far as i know.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-bitcoin-auction-20140627,0,1104979.story


Chris DeMuth, a partner at Rangeley Capital who had been considering bidding, said last week the chance the Marshals Service gets the market price for the bitcoins is low.

"Anyone could pay market prices on existing exchanges," he said. "So the key question is how much of a discount do bidders want."

Haha, you are such a FUD-ster.  ;D

last time i bought 30.000 bitcoins on a exchange, it was november to decembre 2013  :P

Who the heck cares about majority, the ones that mean smth are serious buyers. I believe there were many trying their luck with low bids.

Whaaaaaaa! Bitcoin too expensive for you to buy. Go get a job, make some money.

You may also want to follow the bet here:

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

which will resolve once we have a real trusted source - when coin is involved, it's much more likely to filter out the spam you'll see here and on reddit.