[2018-02-10] U.S. Marshals Auction Completes the Sale of 3,800 BTC

[limek]

The U.S. Marshals revealed this week it completed the auction that saw the sale of 3,813 bitcoins ($31Mn USD) on January 22. The bitcoins were seized from various civil forfeitures and criminal cases involving U.S. law enforcement agencies like Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

U.S. Marshals Auction Completes the Sale of 3,800 BTC

During the first week of January news.Bitcoin.com reported on the U.S. Marshals announcing the federal auction of 3,813 BTC. According to sources familiar with the matter, one unknown bidder was able to obtain a block of 1,600 BTC ($13.2Mn). Another bidder was the firm Riot Blockchain Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT) who publicly disclosed the firm had acquired 500 BTC from the U.S. Marshals auction. The company Riot invests in cryptocurrency startups and blockchain concepts, explains the firm’s CEO John O’Rourke in a recent interview. Even though the price of BTC has been in a slump, O’Rourke believes the price will be much higher next year stating:  

"I believe we’ll be heading north of $50,000 market price within the next 12 to 18 months — Our strategy at Riot is to accumulate Bitcoin and to provide our investors as much direct exposure as we can, hence we decided to participate in the auction."

The Third Successful Government Auction Involving Seized Bitcoins

The BTC auction prices were based on the January 22 closing price of $10,354 USD per coin. At the time the entire sale was $42Mn, but now the whole lot of auctioned bitcoins is worth $11Mn less than the day of the sale. The U.S. Marshals detail there were a little over 62 different registered bidders looking to obtain the seized bitcoins. The rest of the BTC left after the 1,600 block purchase, were sold in blocks of 200, two sets of 500, and one containing 813. Riot seems to be the only bidder that was willing to disclose winning the 500 BTC bid publicly.

The auction this past January marks the third largest U.S. Marshals sale of seized bitcoins from various forfeitures and criminal cases. The first was the high profile Silk Road case which involved the sale of 50,000 BTC which sold for $365 per coin. The well-known venture capitalist Tim Draper publicly announced that he acquired most of those auctioned bitcoins. The last auction the Marshals held was back in the summer of 2016 which saw the sale of 2,700 BTC confiscated from twelve criminal investigations. According to reports, 100 BTC out of the lot of 3,813 BTC the Marshals auctioned this past January were not sold.

Source: https://news.bitcoin.com/u-s-marshals-auction-completes-the-sale-of-3800-btc

[jjacob]

It has taken the US marshals almost a month to complete the sale, after they announced it. In the volatile crypto world, that translates into a 50% loss in value during trade execution. They should be able to implement a better method to sell coins, rather than an anachronistic auction.

[coin_lover]

That's a fair chunk of change for the marshals, well atleast now they know that bitcoin has some value

[Samarkand]

... According to reports, 100 BTC out of the lot of 3,813 BTC the Marshals auctioned this past January were not sold.
...

Has anybody an idea why 100 BTC were not sold during the auction? Given the fact
that there apparently were 62 bidders I find it odd that the Marshals didn´t manage to sell them.

[readysalted89]

These auctions are getting so common that nobody notices them any more. The Silk Road auction really shook the Bitcoin community, there was mass panic over them. This auction barely got noticed.

[Kalamsid]

It has taken the US marshals almost a month to complete the sale, after they announced it. In the volatile crypto world, that translates into a 50% loss in value during trade execution. They should be able to implement a better method to sell coins, rather than an anachronistic auction.

That is right. The delaying of the sale can make them good money is the market is in up trend.

[fisheater]

It's interesting, selling it meaning it is a legal valuable objects, so government should officially announce it is a legal commodity to use.

[1Referee]

The Silk Road auction really shook the Bitcoin community, there was mass panic over them. This auction barely got noticed.

Why did it shock people? I might have missed the 'panic' over that specific auction, but there is nothing to get shocked about. The only thing that might have been the case, is that people consider the government to be a thieve in regards to seizing all the funds, where they then blatantly sold (auctioned) them for their own benefit. In that regard, it's basically criminals stealing from other criminals. Other than that, these auctions are meaningless for the average Bitcoiner. Only large parties are interested in these auctions as it allows them to buy a large number of coins at a fixed price, which is something they can't achieve when buying the same number of coins on-exchange with their futile orderbooks. That's why these auctions don't get any unjustified hype attention.

[prehisto]

I you ask me, I say this is very smart move from them.
Using all this crypto FUD in their favour,

Also i believe thats this is good news in general for crypto world, especially for U.S. where participating in ICOs ( as i understand) are illegal , this could set a good example for other States to think of legalising at least some aspects of crypto.

[gentlemand]

It has taken the US marshals almost a month to complete the sale, after they announced it. In the volatile crypto world, that translates into a 50% loss in value during trade execution. They should be able to implement a better method to sell coins, rather than an anachronistic auction.

I doubt if they care all that much about the money they obtain. They'd be far more interested in following their rules. They will not be taking up the hodl mantra any time soon.

I'd be very interested to know whether much of this coin was from personal seizures or from centralised site wallets. In this day and age you'd have to be pretty stupid to give them the means to take your personal coins away.

[limek]

Similar to vehicle, property and other asset auctions. In this instance the cryptocurrency is a valuable asset that we can living with it.