Bitcoin Forum

"Nearly 25,000 bitcoins confiscated by Australian police as proceeds of crime are going to be sold at an auction in Sydney, officials have confirmed."

http://news.sky.com/story/1704497/australia-to-sell-convicts-9m-bitcoin-haul


Apparently, that's quite a lot of bitcoins being auctioned by the the Australians.
It's good that somehow, these ~25k bitcoins will be back in circulation and will be put to good use, or at least I hope so.


Is it 'okay' to auction out those bitcoins? I mean, it was owned by a person and 'confiscated' by the government and they are actually auctioning it.
As I understood it, the police are getting profit (quite a lot) from this haul.

Of course it's 'okay' they either destroy confiscated property or sell it, if it's money it will be used as funding directly.

I see. I never really knew that and always wondered whenever such a news occur until now.

Clearly is ok to bid on those coins. You will have a legal proof from where you have those coins, so if you have the $$ goodluck on bidding :D

How will 25,000 bitcoins affect market prices if they are released into the market?

Most like not going to affect the market at all. Just like previous US auctions, the buy prices were never known. The one who didn't get the coins might tell you how much they bid and you can then guess how high the actual price was.

That's good to know. Hopefully the price maintains above 550

Just goes to show that bitcoin can be just as easily confiscated as gold or anything else of value.

Even if I had the money to make a decent bid at this chunk of BTC, I wouldn't and here's why...

What is the main purpose of Bitcoin? To remain pseudononymous and can transact anywhere in the world without the scrutiny of government or be interfered.  Now, if you get 25,000 BTC, that's obviously trackable on the blockchain and anyone can see where you are sending those coins... This automatically tracks you to every single payment that you and other people make from here on forward, because you are publicly bidding on them.

I don't think they gonna sell those all bitcoin better australian government may do auction like america has done for silkroad bitcoin.

I wonder if that 25k of bitcoin will be enough to cause a market decline if future owner will decide to dump it all after the auction.
I've seen something similar when FBI announced they will be selling BTC from Silk Road bust.

http://www.coindesk.com/us-government-to-sell-44000-btc-in-final-silk-road-auction/ (http://www.coindesk.com/us-government-to-sell-44000-btc-in-final-silk-road-auction/)

Apparently, the price wouldn't be affected by these coins coming into circulation as it will not affect the difficulty nor the market cap because it already is counted in.
What's going to be affected though is that someone rich is going to be really richer by the halving thanks to these coins.

Well, If this is done... other governments can actually see that they can profit off Bitcoins, if they catch the people responsible for using the technology for criminal activities. They can then hopefully

use that profit to combat more serious crimes. We want Bitcoin to be used for mostly legitimate activities... so we should attempt to root out the criminals and give them over to the authorities. It's

your duty as a citizen to prevent crime and also to report it. Leave the fighting crime bit for the proper authorities.  ::)

I so wish i had some money to bid for these bitcoins but i am skint at the minute..... ;D

i dont see anything wrong with it. the person was doing illegal stuff so his wealth got confiscated. its not like bitcoin is a swiss bank or anything. personally i wouldnt want them to go back into circulation because that would drive the price down.

only thought that comes to mind

is why werent these bitcoins protected ?

do the owners give them up to the authorities ?

why do they not have secure storage methods, surely the people that obtain this amount of coins which ever way they do, must have enough brains to know how to store so nobody can get to them

all i wonder is how the authorities confiscate them ?

Why would anyone want bitcoins from down under? :D

25K does seem like a lot,be interesting to know exactly when the auction is to watch if it effects the price at all directly after or in the 72 hours afterwards. This most likely will not be the last time a Government drops a load of bitcoins on the market through proceeds of crime seizures.

These auctions probably be available only to private fund companies who could afford these sums. 8 million!

Because Bitcoins are no different, if it is from down under, directly from China or made in Hong Kong. Bitcoin is border less, and nobody can discriminate against sheep shagger coins or Camel riders. The fiat currencies cannot say this, because nobody wants Zimbabwean dollars. ^smile^ 

A Bitcoin is a Bitcoin, is a Bitcoin.

Is there really any point in speculating on this type of thing any more? All of the SR coins pretty much did fuck all to the wider world. These won't be any different.

unless it is an Australian Bitcoin

oi mate

An Australian bitcoin, unlike other bitcoins
1) Will never cheat on you
2) Rare to find
3) Venomous
4) Drinks beer
5) Invented itself
6) You need another Australian to find one
7) Eats lamb