What happened with SilkRoad Bitcoins?

[dkbit98]

After shutting down Silk Road website in October 2013 FBI seized 173,991 Bitcoins and this would now be one of the largest known Bitcoin wallets.
I checked at bitinfocharts.com website but I can't found any information about it, but I did found this FBI archive and I know they sold some of Bitcoins on auctions in past.
Wikipedia page claims that they sold 29,657 bitcoins in online auction (worth $18 million then) and 144,342 bitcoins from Ross Ulbricht computer were kept. Tim Draper also bought some Bitcoins on auction but I can't find if government still hold any of silk road bitcoins.

Does anyone have more precise information to share about this case?

[Mbitr]

Hi mate , it is genuinely an interesting conundrum and I had the same thought process as you

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5261540.msg54773725#msg54773725

Forum member Bttzed03 had all the answers, he must have fallen down the rabbit hole too  

Taken from the above thread posted by Bttzed03......

Auctioned.

Jun 2014: 1st auction (BTC29,655) was won by Tim Draper
Dec 2014: 2nd auction (BTC50,000) were won by Tim Draper (BTC2,000) and Barry Silbert's company - SecondMarket (BTC48,000)
Mar 2015: 3rd auction (BTC50,000) no specific details
Oct-Nov 2015: 4th auction (BTC44,341) no specific details but companies like Genesis Trading and Binary Financial were said to have participated.

Sources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/05/feds-auction-135m-worth-of-silk-road-bitcoins.html
https://www.coindesk.com/us-marshals-final-silk-road-bitcoin-auction
https://www.coindesk.com/genesis-trading-binary-to-bid-in-final-silk-road-bitcoin-auction

[lovesmayfamilis]

but I can't find if government still hold any of silk road bitcoins.

Does anyone have more precise information to share about this case?

As I understand it, this is more recent information .
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/united-states-files-civil-action-forfeit-cryptocurrency-valued-over-one-billion-us

Pursuant to that investigation of the hack, law enforcement seized several thousand Bitcoins on November 3, 2020.  On November 4, 2020, the seized Bitcoin had a value of over $1 billion.   

[Mbitr]

but I can't find if government still hold any of silk road bitcoins.

Does anyone have more precise information to share about this case?

As I understand it, this is more recent information .
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/united-states-files-civil-action-forfeit-cryptocurrency-valued-over-one-billion-us

Pursuant to that investigation of the hack, law enforcement seized several thousand Bitcoins on November 3, 2020.  On November 4, 2020, the seized Bitcoin had a value of over $1 billion.   

Wow - if I’m reading this correctly , they are going after roughly 70,000 Bitcoin which were stolen from Silk Road by Individula X ? Which apparently Ulbrecht was aware of ?

[dkbit98]

For anyone who doesn't know anything about darknet site Silk Road and Ross Ulbricht it would be interesting to check out latest 2021 movie starring Nick Robinson as Ross Ulbricht and Jason Clarke as DEA agent Rick Bowden.
I still didn't watch the movie myself (I plan to do it in next few days) and I can't confirm if it is mostly based on actual real events or not, but it would be interesting to watch for anyone who is interested in Bitcoin and no matter what you think about Ross Ulbricht and Silk Road it had a big role in Bitcoin history.

Reminder that in real life Ross Ulbricht was arrested in 2013, and in 2015 he was convicted and double life sentenced plus forty years without a parole!
There are many documentaries about SilkRoad but I think this is the first real movie.


Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8zlJcKygbU

[lovesmayfamilis]

Judging by the waves that Elon Musk has been raising lately with his tweets, I wonder what kind of reaction might follow Musk's tweet that the sentence to the founder of Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, was too harsh.

https://www.yahoo.com/now/elon-musk-says-silk-road-055018800.html

[dkbit98]

Judging by the waves that Elon Musk has been raising lately with his tweets, I wonder what kind of reaction might follow Musk's tweet that the sentence to the founder of Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, was too harsh.
https://www.yahoo.com/now/elon-musk-says-silk-road-055018800.html

I would say that double life sentence for creating a website where people can trade freely and privately is just too harsh, but someone wanted to present Ross worse than Hitler.
Silk Road was experiment probably operated by several people and not just Ross and not to mention that DEA and other gov agencies was involved in all this.
Bitcoin and free trade can't be stopped and they simply can't put all of us in jail can they

PS
I watched Silk Road movie and it's not that bad, but I think Ross was presented more crazy than he actually was.
Funny thing was part when they use and create Bitcoin wallet with phone and ID 

[20kevin20]

So do I get this right? Besides the ~175k BTC they seized back in 2013, they seized ~70k more a few months ago? That's just insane honestly..

I would say that double life sentence for creating a website where people can trade freely and privately is just too harsh, but someone wanted to present Ross worse than Hitler.

Silk Road was one of the key points of getting Bitcoin widely adopted. Not because you can commit crimes using it, but because the governments can't censor it.

Back then, BTC was simply one of the biggest enemies of governments, so I suppose the reason they gave Ross this harsh sentence is because they wanted to show us all that, "Hey, wanna use a cryptocurrency against slavery and censorship? We're gonna punish you really well!".

There are some suspected stuff about Ross such as him allegedly requesting a hitman to murder a vendor for $500k. Other websites mention that he requested 6 murders. However, none of the charges were apparently linked to the murder requests so I don't know what to say about that...

I agree. His sentence just for creating the Bitcoin market is more than exaggerated. This is what happens when you try to become the Surveillance, control-hungry State's enemy.. they portray you as the worst and most dangerous human on Earth..

[dkbit98]

Victoria Police from Australia recently seized record amount of $6 million (A$8.5 million) worth Bitcoins related with online drug trafficking investigation,
and they arrested 31-year-old woman Kinglake and a 30-year-old man Preston, that could face up to 10 years in jail.
Police also seized various drugs cannabis, magic mushrooms, MDMA, and they found connection with now defunct Silk Road website, and it is known that Peter Nash,
an Australian man who was Silk Road moderator was arrested and sentenced back in 2015.
It is not yet clear how they find connection with Silk Road but they worked with FBI and they probably traced some transactions or found evidence in seized hard drives.

Sources:
https://www.police.vic.gov.au/record-australian-cryptocurrency-seizure
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/dark-web-drug-investigation-leads-to-record-cryptocurrency-seizure-20210820-p58kff.html