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US Government To Convert Silk Road Bitcoins To USD
angry tapir writes "The founder of the Silk Road underground website has forfeited the site and thousands of bitcoins, worth around $28 million at current rates, to the U.S. government. The approximately 29,655 bitcoins were seized from the Silk Road website when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) moved to close it in late September. 'The United States Marshals Service shall dispose of the Silk Road Hidden Website and the Silk Road Server Bitcoins according to law,' wrote Judge J. Paul Oetken, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in a court order that was issued this week. The ruling represents the largest-ever forfeiture of bitcoins. 'It is the intention of the government to ultimately convert the bitcoins to U.S. currency,' said Jim Margolin, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York."
No, but his money and property has.
Civil Forfeiture law is insane.
Right now, I can't buy groceries with BTC.
Wrong. Whole Foods accepts bitcoin.
I can't take a friend out for lunch and pay with BTC.
Wrong again
I can exchange BTC for my local currency and then go about my business, but that's about it.
Overstock.com, Amazon, CVS, Target, Victoria's Secret, Zappos, the list keeps growing.
Of course most of these stores actually use a payment processor that immediately converts the bitcoins to USD for them, but if more and more stores start accepting it, at some point the currency may become so practical that such conversions will no longer need to be made. If a company does business with another company that accepts bitcoin, they may as well take bitcoin from their clients and then use those bitcoins to pay their suppliers. Transaction fees are much lower than those for credit cards, you don't even need any middle men.