Bitcoin Forum

http://www.usmarshals.gov/assets/2015/dpr-february-auction/ (http://www.usmarshals.gov/assets/2015/dpr-february-auction/)

Have they finally emptied their cache?

Wish this causes a trend reversal

Well the second auction didn't really affect so much on the movement of the price so hopefully this time round, it will be the same as well.

People should avoid purchasing Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency from any government that did previously confiscate them.  Most Bitcoin users use Bitcoin because they wish to engage in a more FREE and a more PRIVATE management of their value/worth/wealth that is not subject to prying third party eyes (government or otherwise).  

Anyone that purchases those coins from the government is no friend of freedom or liberty or privacy... instead they are simply one of but many slaves to fiat currency, as is policed by each its own respective government and world banking oversights.

The government will take the fiat proceeds of the Bitcoin sale and will apply that against more policing and prosecution of more people, namely people committing victimless crimes where all the participants were voluntary, and where Bitcoin or Tor or some other technological means of privacy was used, which to the government represents an enemy.

True Bitcoin believers and advocates seem far and few in-between, in that they've not the sense to speak out against such government actions relating to Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin community, at least the core community and those with the muscle and influence, should publicly denounce such auctions and encourage everyone in the Bitcoin community to not partake... to avoid it like the plague and to not give them anything other then what they've already stolen.  

If they want to sell those Bitcoins, then let them go to the exchanges and sell try to sell them, but the community as a whole, including the exchanges should treat those Bitcoins like 'dirty' Bitcoins and have NOTHING to do with them, and not trade them... because after all, aren't they dirty Bitcoins?

No they have another 44k or something for the next auction.

It is important to maintain the fungibility of all bitcoins. Any attempt to taint coins should be avoided.

I just hope that they offload the remaining coins pretty quick. And I know that it is almost impossible... but there is a minuscule chance that Ullbricht might be found not guilty of the charges. Then the US Government will be obliged to pay back the coins they stole from him. Imagine if that happens when the exchange rate is something like 1BTC = $100,000.  ;D

Says the newbie with 7 posts ...

That would be awesome and i would love to see that happen :D

Remember back in last summer, the Bitcoin raised up to 650$ after the auction, so, what about this time?

Actually, back then the Bitcoins were auctioned at a premium, compared to the market rate. That was the sole reason behind the Bitcoin rally then. Let's wait and watch what happens this time.

Probably the same than last time, bought at a premium. It's the only way to buy that many without moving the market too much while you do it.
Not sure of how it will react after though, it's seems quite numb theses days.

One man bought all the coins auctioned in the first auction and announced he was holding them all rather than selling. That's why we had a rally afterwards. There were many winners of lots in the second auction and I guess they dumped because there was crash after crash afterwards.

So you would rather the 50k coins be dumped onto a exchange in 1 day?
What do you think that will do for the price?

Why would they avoid it if they can purchase that whole bulk for a cheaper price, that could instantly make them tons of cash.

I really hope they're not going to split the remainder of their stash and put us into multiple situations of a crashing market due to the announcement of the respective auctions. Now Ulbricht is convicted, they should go and sell the rest of the lot in March already and get this whole thing over with...

well i hope all those auctions, do not destroy the bitcoin price, it's already pretty bad right now

The people who bought the BTC are long-term and big investors. They're looking to acquire a large amount of BTC at once. Those auctions are the perfect way for them to achieve that goal. They won't sell the BTC on the market, they couldn't even sell them a tiny profit. They hold those BTC. Sure, the auctions may numb down quite a bit of buying pressure, but I advise everyone not to put too much weight on the auctions' effect on the price!

I think you may have nailed this one. This auction should not have much of importance, as it is kind of 'same old' news. 

Does anybody know how many more auctions/coins are left? Or is this is the final amount?

Few posts back. 44k left. How many auctions? Propably even marshall don't know...

Ah, I'm an idiot. Thanks for pointing that out...appreciated.
Interesting to see how this plays out as it might be the last chance for investors with big pockets to scoop up large amounts of coins (unless you are into hacking exchanges)

Well you never know when the people buying the auction plan to dump it.

Your link says : THIS SEALED BID AUCTION IS FOR A PORTION OF THE BITCOINS CONTAINED IN WALLET FILES THAT RESIDED ON CERTAIN COMPUTER HARDWARE BELONGING TO ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT

Their stach is going down : http://bitcoinrichlist.com/top100

A total of BTC 144,000 was seized from Ross Ulbricht by the FBI.

In the first auction, some 30,000 coins were sold. 50,000 more were sold during the second auction. After the third auction, some 14,000 coins will remain with the FBI.
[Originally cleared to me by (credits to)bryant.coleman ]

If I remember correctly the first 30,000 coins auctioned belonged to the silk road server (the escrow hot wallet).  They also seized 144,000 that belonged to Ross, so after the next auction of 50,000 there will indeed still be 44,000 to be auctioned off.

Until new seize happens, it seams interesting that they auction the coins in portions over time, instead of just selling all at the same time. I know they will get more in portions, but its like they are trying to dump
the price by doing so periodicaly. And allways after some good news, they publish another auction (now its the dell internationaly bitcoin acceptance)

cheers

The Feds will run out of coins eventually and then they'll have to commandeer some more of them from victimless crimes.  But the stashes of them will generally get smaller and smaller as more and more of them get distributed among the people.  So they can't count on that strategy for much longer.

Plus, 44,000 Bitcoins even at $1,000 each will still only be $44 Million.  There's some whales out there who are watching the Bitcoin market who could probably find that change under the couch

How much of coins US marshalls still have?

They will keep happening after every version of Silk road is launched.

There was a silk road clone busted a while back that used multisig. The feds could not confiscate most of the bitcoins because they needed both the owner's keys and the exchange's keys to move the coins. Ironically if the legit exchanges used the same system there would be less coins lost due to hacks.

very good point, actually. It seems that this current auction takes place during the on-going sentiment shift, when even a very BTC-negative news can not do much harm to the price. Last year, on the contrary, we had negative sentiment, when even a very positive events couldn't lift the price much.

They have:

50k (this auction)
https://blockchain.info/address/12pCPrWvudnefJCtXQUBcm9z2NogtC3Rix

44k
https://blockchain.info/address/1CaGxqCQv2ofqLf37HCUQoLujzRMaz74LK

I imagine they will want to keep some for bait to lure out their prey in future investigations. They would be foolish not to. They keep confiscated drugs and cash for the same purpose.

Thats true. Like the assasins being them.
But I doubt other site owners would fall for the same thing again

Criminals fall for the same tricks over and over. Law Enforcement proceedur is founded on it. They may get more sophisticated, but sophisticated versions of the same old traps are all they have to work with.

BTW, I read the DPR emails and there is a solid case to be made for entrapment upon appeal. That Kangaroo court should not have happened in a free society. Having said that, DPR made some obvious mistakes unless Ross is right and he was made a patsy, in which case DPR was ingenious to pin it on a fall guy.

I would get to buy a shitload of coins for very cheap, that's what would happen.


As for the other people talking about the government having to buy back the bitcoins if he was to be innocent or anything in that regards, that's simply not true. They would, if anything, be forced to give the dollar amount of the goods back to Ulbricht. I'm no lawyer but I'm pretty sure in the USA any dispute taken to the US courts can be settled in USD per court order rather than the goods that are in question. --No that is not legal advice.

Thanks for clearing it up to me all over again :)

Why is there a public not  saying
Public Note: Good afternoon! Your help is necessary. My wife has a problem with health, treatment is necessary (we expect a baby). If you have some unnecessary btc or satosh, please, help, we will rejoice any help.

and some receiving's around jan 2015 ??

I'ts someone spamming around trying to get people to send him coins.

Here check the address:

https://blockchain.info/address/1HELPMEWinQPNsYmbJU2siyKUCEZaNYj7j

Okay i get that about
https://blockchain.info/address/1HELPMEWinQPNsYmbJU2siyKUCEZaNYj7j

But why
https://blockchain.info/address/12pCPrWvudnefJCtXQUBcm9z2NogtC3Rix
and
https://blockchain.info/address/1CaGxqCQv2ofqLf37HCUQoLujzRMaz74LK

They are as i know USmarshall auction cold wallets , why do they have that note and people are sending money to it ???

People are sending coins to the US marshall address and they had a message in hopes that people will read it and send them some btc.

Okay so you're telling me that US marshall is spamming
and why in the hell are people sending money to that address , can't they just see the amount they have  >:(

The ethereum IPO bitcoin address had had exactly the same message sent to it. It's the same person trying the same thing on every well publicized address that he knows people will be watching. I doubt he will make anything out of it, if he does it wil only be a small amount.

https://blockchain.info/address/36PrZ1KHYMpqSyAQXSG8VwbUiq2EogxLo2

Okay to tell you really i have never been in all this mining and trading stuff much and started trading just some months ago
So we can add public notes to other people's address ???
As what i understand , someone sent them a small transaction with that note , and thus it was left there but how is the guy getting any help of it ?

You can add a note to your transaction to that address. It'll gradually fall away if other transactions arrive. I guess he hopes someone will spot it and send huge amounts of BTC. It's worth a few satoshis if you're lazy and hopeful.

Some of the big addresses have some entertaining death threats too.

Okay i can atleast search how to do it
But he is sending it to them in hope , they send him some after seeing the help he needs or is it possible that other people are seeing it and he is expecting other people to send him after seeing him in need ?
Thank you

Yes. I guess that's the idea.

That's totally stupid idea
Thanks for clarifying it to me :)

It only takes one stupid person to respond.

The message is added in the incoming transaction, US Marshals have no control over that.

You can see the transaction here:

https://blockchain.info/tx/4429090838f3c3585a0496a6ee427e4ad18ace787d58440d7ebd2b190a82e06b

1HELPMEWinQPNsYmbJU2siyKUCEZaNYj7j is the sending address, US Marshals 12pCPrWvudnefJCtXQUBcm9z2NogtC3Rix the receiving address.

Date Registered:   October 07, 2012, 08:46:12 PM
I hope the account wasn't too expensive

Don't worry i didn't bought it !
As i said , i wasn't much interested in this stuff before , and was just using it sometimes , not that i have left my job and sitting here searching for a new job , i got lil the time on my hands.
So though i am hero member but i got knowledge of that of newbie , i can even sign it with my address if someone can teach me how to do it :)

Download the multibit bitcoin wallet and use the instructions linked below to add a note to your transaction.

https://multibit.org/en/help/v0.5/help_signAndVerifyMessage.html

We did not have rally after it, we were in 600s when first auction was announced. Then chopping around that without idea how auction will play and then got dump few days after.

I wouldn't give too much attention to the auctions affecting exchange prices.  If (IF) I were a capable wannabe large holder, then I'd offer something close to market value, or maybe a little more to avoid screwing with the markets, as it would be BTC I'd be interested in rather than USD in that scenario, and just want the least damage to my FIAT wallet as possible.

Nothing is being created or destroyed, just reassigned.

If my future intentions were to have a company that used the blockchain for some purpose other than money, then I'd need to hold a certain amount of coins or sub-units to make transactions happen (like buying a block of IP addresses for an ISP business).  There's only so many, and if widely adopted (which is our gamble) then those finite units could have value in many ways other than just USD equival.

I think what I'm trying to say is that not everyone here is looking at this just as a FIAT gaining exercise.  Sure a good trader will have opportunity if they still have both feet in the FIAT world and want to trade for USD profit, but some people here have decided to cut that tether, or have a foot in both camps for the near term to watch how it would unfold.

Not how it works.  https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#four2

How is it they come to the decision to sell at these prices, seems like nobody has a brain over there.  Or perhaps no single person has the power to make sale date decisions.

They're doing OK.
Yeah, the market price is shittier than it was during the previous auction, and back then it was shittier than during the first one, but hey, hindsight, amirite?  Besides, the BTC is just bonus--Bitcoiners crowdfunded DPR's investigation/pwnage.

Its mostly people who fair the price of bitcoin to crash. And if they think of that, they see losing money and probably dump and get out.

But unfortunately, it goes up instead and they regret it the next day .

^Market price during the first auction > market price during the second auction > market price now.
Only possible regret: "Why didn't we sell this bag earlier?! :( "

You'd think they'd have some top techincal analysis traders viewing the data though, the market is tricky to predict for anyone but a few seem to get it right more often then not.

They don't really care about selling for a good price, they are just liquidating the assets from the seizure like with anything else. And that is probably done according to a time table that is dictated by internal proceedings, not the market. So they would auction the Bitcoins now if they were a million dollars or just a nickel.

Before the first auction someone made the point that the US was selling because they thought the price would go down in the long run. It's considerably lower now than before either of the last two auctions. The US might be selling now because they still hold the same view.

I really still think it was somewhat sketchy to sell the BTC. They wouldn't sell the 100$ bills they get from some drug raid for discounted rates, wouldn't they?

No, they wouldn't have to.  They'd put those bills directly in the bank because that's real money.
But yeah, seized money goes in the bank, they don't incinerate it, if that's what you mean.

It doesn't stay in the bank for long. Most seized funds are immediately converted into toys like this:

http://www.news9.com/story/24981268/seized-drug-money-helps-guthrie-police-purchase-armored-vehicle

Nice tool to raid Libertarian extremists who think they can sell drugs and not pay taxes.

Just part of the ever-evolving Orwellian police state we have here in the U.S.

Wow, they can do that?
Shouldn't the money go together with all of the tax revenues the government has?
It's everybody's money too after all...

They earned that money by frightening and extorting passing motorists.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/us/60343/hand-over-your-cash-how-us-cops-commit-highway-robbery

Welcome to America. Luckily I live in a developed country.

They do 50k now to leave 40k? seems strange but yeah i can see there is likely no thought at all into the whole process.

but also: price drop after first auction -> almost no reaction after the 2nd -> and now?
probably also all is priced in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks its aJon Oliver show where he nicely described whats happening with  Civil Forfeiture in usa.
Insane, just purely insane that people actually tolerate this kind of harrasment from the public service that was originaly created to serve, and to protect ..
Way to go 'murica

cheers

Yea and why didn't they do something like this with the seized BTC? I bet there are all kinds of stuff they could have bought with them. Or donate them or something.

There are some sort of legal rules which force them to auction the seized BTC rather than directly sell them or buy something with them. I don't know exactly how the rules work but that's why they auction loads of other things they confiscate like cars. They would probably raise far more money selling them directly but they can't.

Because USMS is not as dumb as most Bitcoiners?
Because you don't get to tell USMS what to do?
Because USMS always auctions off seized criminal proceeds?

If those aren't reasons enough, here's another:
If USMS chose to hold BTC (what you feel is the equivalent of putting USD in the bank), the agents would discover, much to their chagrin, that their "saved" BTC has lost most of its buying power, i.e. the same coin that was worth $1,2000 in December is now worth $245 :(
Like so:
http://s1.postimg.org/6ohlg6xrz/Capture.jpg

So the question really shouldn't be "why did USMS choose to sell," but "WTF didn't you?"

because:
http://i.lvme.me/r0bhuw1.jpg

Why do people fear that all the auction coins will be dumped ?
I don't see it ever happening. They don't buy coins to dump.

Same reason you see all the numb numbs spouting off about coin inflation and all the miners dumping.  They are not so bright.  You know that 100% of the miners do not mine them to just dump them on the market.  They will still say 3600 btc enter the market every day as a best case scenario when in truth it's only a small percentage of that entering.   

its mean bitcoin will dump again

Probably ::)

They do seem keen to sell low and keep the market down, I don't know why they are doing it in tranches either...
I hope this is it though and hopefully someone with a big name will buy in the auction.

They have a typo in there, you write "Bitcoin" with a capital "B" not "b".

The big name that bought in the first auction is now stuck with a pile of bitcoins worth half what he paid. If that's not going to put off other big names from buying I don't know what will.