9.5 million flagged bitcoins

[cafter]

silkroad had made sales over 9.5Million BTC and revenue of around 600,00 BTC,

are this 9.5 million BTC are flagged by US government? is it safe to buy bitcoins from these 9.5million btc (maybe from 9.5million flagged btc)

[1714927894]

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[1714927894]

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[un_rank]

This news is ten years old. And it is safe to buy any bitcoins which is available for sale.
The concept of tainting coins is a centralization strategy which the government wants to use to control Bitcoin.

- Jay -

[Nwada001]

Information source, please...
How do you identify the BTC coming from the Silk Road wallet? Or were the sales made directly into a private investor's wallet? If no, then as soon as the BTC enters an exchange account or wallet, it's the individual who deposited it and the exchange in question that's going to be at risk. If anyone ever purchases BTC from that exchange, the Silkroad BTC won't be linked to them because they might have mixed with other BTC on the exchange.
 
There is also a possibility of buying that coin and mixing it with any Bitcoin mixer out there, and the address might no longer be linked to your own.

[Z-tight]

The U.S government control most of the money forfeited in the silk road and what they seized from James Zhong, and they have even started liquidating it ^[1], i guess they are no longer 'flagged' or 'tainted' now that it's the U.S government that's liquidating the funds and you're free to buy it  . The term flagged or tainted BTC is not part of the BTC network or protocol, it is from pro censorship institutions that want to spread their censorship to BTC.

[1] https://decrypt.co/125081/us-government-dumps-seized-silk-road-bitcoin

[ImThour]

The accounts can be flagged but not the particular Bitcoin. Bitcoin doesn't have an unique identifier which they can track, but an account which holds the Bitcoin does.
So, people use Mixers to clean these sort of Bitcoins to new accounts and try to get rid of previous connections. That way, you don't have to worry about SEC or Govt.

As a normal person who is buying it from an exchange, you don't have to worry about it.

[coolcoinz]

is it safe to buy bitcoins from these 9.5million btc (maybe from 9.5million flagged btc)

If these "flags" had any real meaning, what would happen with coins seized by the US government? They would have to destroy it and never sell it.
What happens when you buy these coins from the government, because many people bought seized coins on auctions?

Don't you have more serious things to worry about? Every single day some US dollars are used to buy drugs. Do you worry that you could get some of these and give your kid as lunch money?

[franky1]

in the days of silk road(2011). there were not even 9.5mill coins in total of the whole bitcoin network
(mid 2012 the network reached 10.5m, yet... minus satoshis stash would again be under 9.5m)
and no not all coins went through silk road

law enforcement only seized about 150k coins.

fungibility/taint is not a simple yes/no . its a % of suspicion

using a mixer actually adds more % risk of suspicion and definitely gets you put on a watch list.

[SatoPrincess]

silkroad had made sales over 9.5Million BTC and revenue of around 600,00 BTC,

are this 9.5 million BTC are flagged by US government? is it safe to buy bitcoins from these 9.5million btc (maybe from 9.5million flagged btc)

I wouldn’t bother about it if I were you. Do you go to bed pondering over whether the cash you got today from the grocery store was previously obtained from a drug deal? No you don’t. Besides how are we supposed to know where the bitcoins have been anyway?? IMO as long as you bought those “tainted” bitcoins legally and can explain your source of income if need be, then you don’t have a problem with the authorities.

I think this is a problem bitcoin mixers solve. You can use a mixer to clean your bitcoins if you’re so worried about where they have been, you send the bitcoins to a mixer and they will come out sparkling clean.

[CryptSafe]

OP, it should not be a thing of concern or worries as this is an old fashioned news. Bitcoin has no censorship over itself not to talk of any organisation claiming to do such. Bitcoin is an open source for everyone. Buying bitcoin should not be a problem to you as it is not tainted. If exchanges can buy bitcoin and you too can buy from them hen why should you be afraid of buying bitcoin or are you the only one buying bitcoin? Let me remind that there are a million and one persons buying bitcoin from exchanges and have you herd the US government coming after them?

[logfiles]

are this 9.5 million BTC are flagged by US government? is it safe to buy bitcoins from these 9.5million btc (maybe from 9.5million flagged btc)

But they sell Bitcoins back to market, right? And the all of a sudden the "tainted" or "unclean" Bitcoins become miraculously untainted 
Can't you see the hypocrisy of our Governments and Law enforcement chaps?
So what's your worry here?
The moment you start believing in their (Governments') stupid moves and positions. Then you are done. What would be the purpose to use or believe in Bitcoin any more?

[hatshepsut93]

I'm not going to verify the claim of nearly half of total supply being flagged at some point, but there's no way that such large amount of coins is still flagged by anyone, because a lot of those coins changed hands thousands of times. But it's possible that some of the coins that are separated by only a small number of transactions from known criminal deals are being monitored to this day in case the addresses become active again.

So many people are worried about dirty coins, but the precedents of someone getting into trouble over their coins being dirty for no reason are very rare.

[Smartvirus]

Un rank AKA Jay said, it’s a news from 10years ago but then, am interested in this comment;

is it safe to buy bitcoins from these 9.5million btc (maybe from 9.5million flagged btc)

If these "flags" had any real meaning, what would happen with coins seized by the US government? They would have to destroy it and never sell it.
What happens when you buy these coins from the government, because many people bought seized coins on auctions?

Can bitcoin be really destroyed? I don’t think it possible except you mean loosing the private key to its wallet as that would be the equivalent of not having it been transferred or used by any means.
So in what context were you implying this?

Still, you have a commodity in the market and not the blackmarket or its likes but this is the US government putting out some seized coins for reuse by selling it to willing buyers. There isn’t anything wrong in that. It’s just business and should you care about your privacy, you can take steps to mix coins before retrieving it to a safe wallet.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Like very many other users have said, and I believe many other users will still say, Bitcoin and it's blockchain are completely decentralized and uncensorable, there is absolutely no way for the government to censor to tag some amount of bitcoins as tainted, this is absolutely not possible except it's the bitcoin they themselves(the government) hold in their own wallet and decide to taint it with some kind of coding skills, but I can assure you that, as soon as any of those bitcoins leave such wallet, it has become like every other bitcoin out there and can be freely bought and sold.

[SatoPrincess]

this is absolutely not possible except it's the bitcoin they themselves(the government) hold in their own wallet and decide to taint it with some kind of coding skills, but I can assure you that, as soon as any of those bitcoins leave such wallet, it has become like every other bitcoin out there and can be freely bought and sold.

I think the authorities can blacklist the bitcoin addresses that have been linked to the criminal activity, and since the blockchain is a public ledger, everyone can see when and where the bitcoins from these wallets are being moved, this is how the government follows the trail to find where the money is going. They also have the power to ask centralized exchanges to cooperate with them and report any suspicious transactions from such addresses. Like I said before, using a mixer makes it difficult for anyone to track your bitcoin transactions.

[sheenshane]

are this 9.5 million BTC are flagged by US government? is it safe to buy bitcoins from these 9.5million btc (maybe from 9.5million flagged btc)

I think this is old news I'm thinking now this Silkroad has already been shut down and how this case was going on which is Silk Road is no longer operational.  So to answer your question, IMO it's possible that those Bitcoins could be flagged as part of an ongoing investigation or subject to seizure by law enforcement authorities and most of all engaging in illegal activities, including purchasing or possessing assets obtained through illegal means, can have legal consequences.

Fortunately, Bitcoin can be cleaned with the use of mixer tools.
So there's no need to worry about this if you know how to clean your Bitcoin.

[jeraldskie11]

No matter how old was the news as long as the private key is being kept, it can still dump the price of BTC if they're going to sell it all in one time. I saw an article that the US government move some BTC that they seized from Silkroad to Coinbase for almost 10000 BTC. So as long as the Btc will be transferred to an exchange, we have to expect that it would be sold. We should be worry for this? The thing is we have to find the those exact addresses so that we can monitor the movement.

Source:
https://finbold.com/1-billion-worth-of-silk-road-bitcoins-on-the-move-btc-dump-imminent.
https://twitter.com/PeckShieldAlert/status/1633331891347820544

[Potato Chips]

No matter how old was the news as long as the private key is being kept, it can still dump the price of BTC if they're going to sell it all in one time. I saw an article that the US government move some BTC that they seized from Silkroad to Coinbase for almost 10000 BTC. So as long as the Btc will be transferred to an exchange, we have to expect that it would be sold. We should be worry for this? The thing is we have to find the those exact addresses so that we can monitor the movement.

Source: https://finbold.com/1-billion-worth-of-silk-road-bitcoins-on-the-move-btc-dump-imminent/#:~:text=Between%20November%202021%20and%20March,was%20worth%20roughly%20%243.39%20billion.

https://twitter.com/PeckShieldAlert/status/1633331891347820544

Looks like OP confused the 9.8K BTC with 9.5 Million BTC, thanks for the link.

Though I don't think OP is worried about the price dumping. Rather, their post was about how safe would it be to buy these, most likely because of the 'taint' concept centralized custodial exchanges/governments are pushing.

In this case, since the bitcoins were sold to coinbase, if op were to deposit them to another CEX, rather than silk road, it's likely to be associated with Coinbase.

[Darker45]

Much of these were confiscated. The US government itself sold a portion of the seized coins, probably around 20%. Whoever bought them should feel safe despite the fact that those were coins involved in illegal transactions. The US government still has tens of thousands of Bitcoin in their possession. But they know better than throwing away these dirty coins. They hodl them. They will probably liquidate them when the price is good.

So don't believe in tainted or flagged coins. Be cautious, though. But know that Bitcoin is fungible. The US government's Bitcoin has equal value with anybody's Bitcoin.

[Ale88]

No matter how old was the news as long as the private key is being kept, it can still dump the price of BTC if they're going to sell it all in one time. I saw an article that the US government move some BTC that they seized from Silkroad to Coinbase for almost 10000 BTC. So as long as the Btc will be transferred to an exchange, we have to expect that it would be sold. We should be worry for this? The thing is we have to find the those exact addresses so that we can monitor the movement.

Source:
https://finbold.com/1-billion-worth-of-silk-road-bitcoins-on-the-move-btc-dump-imminent.
https://twitter.com/PeckShieldAlert/status/1633331891347820544

You can monitor just for personal interest, reading that (clickbait) article the price "dumped" about $450 for 10k BTC: we have no way to know if that actually had something to do with that sale or it was just a coincidence. Oftentimes, when a whale sells, that sale gets immediately absorbed by the market, the problem is when there are several whales trying to manipulate the market.

[bbc.reporter]

This news is ten years old. And it is safe to buy any bitcoins which is available for sale.
The concept of tainting coins is a centralization strategy which the government wants to use to control Bitcoin.

- Jay -

I disagree and you should not make irresponsible statements like this especially if it can increase the risk of someone's funds in an exchange or a bank account being frozen or closed.

Anyone can argue that taint is not real, however, this certainly does not assure anyone that sending tainted coins to a centralized service will not cause us some problems.