US Marshals claim one bidder won every Bitcoin in recent Silk Road auction

[Shawn Knight]

Update: Investor Tim Draper has been revealed as the winner of the US Marshals' Bitcoin auction.

The US Marshals' auction of the nearly 30,000 Bitcoins seized from underground drug marketplace Silk Road is now complete. Officials say a single, undisclosed bidder outbid everyone else and won the 10 individual auctions, taking home the entire lot of Bitcoins.

The auction took place on June 27 with the Marshals promising to notify winners on June 30. A total of 45 registered bidders reportedly took place in the auction, submitting 63 bids in the process.The Bitcoins were offered up in 10 blocks with the first nine consisting of 3,000 coins each and the final block having 2,656.51306529 coins.

The transfer of Bitcoins to the winner took place on July 1, the Marshals office said.

As CoinDesk points out, some key bidders were among the pool of 45 vying for the Bitcoins. SecondMarket founder and CEO Barry Silbert revealed on Twitter that his auction syndicate consisted of 42 bidders and 186 bids. He claims the syndicate was outbid on all blocks.

The auction process didn't go off without a hitch, however. A few weeks ago, the US Marshals accidentally leaked the e-mail identities of nearly 20 potential bidders. With e-mail addresses in hand, it didn't take long for the web to figure out the identities of those potential bidders.

The US Marshals office said the blunder was in no way intentional and apologized for the mistake.

Do you think the winning bidder will eventually come forward?

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/57291-us-marshals-claim-one-bidder-won-every-bitcoin-in-recent-silk-road-auction.html

 

[wastedkill]

I'm wondering if this individual actually turned a profit and how much....

 

[Guest]

Is there even logical reason to do this? Were there maximum bid? Why would somebody pay more for coin that the value it has at that moment?

 

[VitalyT]

That's like selling an active currency from an auction, makes an absolute zero sense. What is going on?

 

[Guest]

@VitalyT normal currency doesn't swing 20-50% points. I would not classify Bitcoin as currency yet.

 

[wastedkill]

That's like selling an active currency from an auction, makes an absolute zero sense. What is going on?

Probably in the hope bitcoins go back up to $1000 per 1 or beyond that...

 

[insect]

That's like selling an active currency from an auction, makes an absolute zero sense. What is going on?

Probably in the hope bitcoins go back up to $1000 per 1 or beyond that...

And they probably will. Newegg and 1-800-flowers both just started accepting bitcoin this week. BTC is at almost $650 now, that's up $100 in less than a month.

 

[Kibaruk]

Is there even logical reason to do this? Were there maximum bid? Why would somebody pay more for coin that the value it has at that moment?

When you have control over the biggest part of the pie, you are able to change the rules on how the market behaves up to a certain point.

If that adds to a previous owned ammount, it could sum up really fast.

 

[wastedkill]

And they probably will. Newegg and 1-800-flowers both just started accepting bitcoin this week. BTC is at almost $650 now, that's up $100 in less than a month.

I have 30 LTC so hoping they go back up to $50!

 

[tonylukac]

He hacked it, like I did with radio station contests in the 70s when hacking was legal. The radio station would tell you to be the 15th caller at 591-7240. I'd call the phantom number 236-7240 and bypass 99 percent of the callers. This was called mass calling, to not tie up individual central offices with a flood of calls. Phantom numbers still exist, but they start with 1 or 0 so you can't dial them, but operators and blue boxes users, like wozniak, can. Now that I showed you this, tell me how to hack the illinois lottery. It's online. I'll be your lawyer. Can get you off of anything, but if I told you it would make you homeless.

 

[TheLastPanda]

Is there even logical reason to do this? Were there maximum bid? Why would somebody pay more for coin that the value it has at that moment?

Its very hard to get your hands on such a large number of bitcoins and when dealing with that much money, paying through the FBI is much more secure than using some notoriously seedy BTC trading sites.

 

[Guest]

That's about $20 million worth of bitcoin. Bid $19 million, then sell it, make $1 million.

Simply insane. Kill us all.