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US To Auction $1.6 Million Worth of Bitcoin From Various Cases (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Reuters report: The U.S. government said on Monday it plans to auction over 2,700 bitcoin that were forfeited during several cases, including the prosecution of the creator of the online black market known as Silk Road. The U.S. Marshals Service said that the online auction would be held on Aug. 22, and that potential bidders must register by Aug. 18. The bitcoin are worth about $1.6 million, according to the Bitstamp exchange. The auction is the latest by the Marshals Service of the digital currency. It completed four prior auctions from June 2014 to November 2015 of bitcoin seized during the prosecution of Ross Ulbricht, who authorities say ran Silk Road.
I suppose bitcoin is not technically currency, but it still seems kind of pointless to auction off bitcoins . Imagine if the headline were "Feds to auction off $1.6M in forfeited cash". You would expect the auction price to be very, very close to 1.6M. The arbitrage on bitcoins may be such that it comes in slightly less than 1.6M, but not much.
This transfer would kill any pseudo-anonymity in the blockchain. Coins assigned to feds, Feds assigned to you, then can come back and lean on you to account for who you transferred coins to... Opening the question, does a bitcoin's market value depend on who owned it previously?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
So I will reply with a haiku.
Federal Auction?
Or gigantic honeypot?
Caveat Emptor.
Help them (the government) ease into handling e-currencies for profit.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
new toys for teh U.S. Marshals Service !!
1.6 Million worth of bitcoins? Hardly.
They will be auctioned and nobody with half a brain will pay anything close to current market value for them, and if the auction sells them for dirt cheap, that will bring the value of bitcoin tumbling down, further defeating the purpose of even participating in the auction.
And even if you win the auction, no exchange is mad enough to give you that kind of money right away (chances are, they don't even have that kind of money in hand). You are going to have to sit on your 'coins for a while. I suppose you COULD stress test the bitcoin network by suddenly placing 1.6 million individual orders for t-shirts or crappy trinkets or whatever it is people are accepting bitcoins for. But that might be the tungsten rod that finally breaks the camel's back, so to speak.
So, tl;dr, from a bitcoin economy point of view, this is a lose-lose situation.
*grunt* *smash* I no understand. Must smash. *urg*
Hey faggot AC, how many ransomware news stories where they demand payment in bitcoins do you have to read before you get it through your thick, two-digit IQ head that cryptocurrency is only really being used by criminals to commit criminal acts? Destroy ALL OF IT and make it illegal. Or are you criminal scum?
I enjoy being a criminal. What is it to you?
Will they accept Bitcoins?
Why can't we choose to not accept any bitcoin that has been seized? Why hasn't this been automated yet?
hurr durr I IS A CRIMINAL
No you're a bored 12 year old on summer break jacking off on the Internets. What's the matter get banned from 4chan for being an extreme faggot? Kill yourself, it's the most criminal thing you can do.
Oh yeah, I forgot, they "destroy" the drugs so nobody takes them. It would be wrong to auction them off and keep the proceeds. Then they would be dealers. Its much better that we take their word for it when they take away all of the stuff that belongs to bad guys and sell it, except for the drugs which we never see again because they don't sell it at a public auction. You can be sure if you never see it again that it was destroyed since you can always believe the good guys. Why would they lie? Only bad guys lie. They lie about all of the stuff they have because they are criminals, and that's why the good guys just take it away from them and always tell the truth. It's really great how America is so good at winning wars on drugs and crime and terrorists and poverty and human trafficking and bitcoins with coke residue on them. And its really nice of them to destroy all of the evidence before it escapes and sells itself to the next idiot they bust for dealing. Thank goodness they have put an end to crime and addiction in America. Finally we are great again. We figured out how to make crime pay the good guys: we just take it from criminals after they earn it breaking the law. That's a perfect solution, no wonder we have such great results.
.. that state actors can seize property for their own gain.
Really think about it for a second.
Quite frankly anything seized and not returned should be destroyed (in the case of currency) or donated to a registered charity with a small fee assessed to the seizing department (which should also be destroyed).
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
I actually agree with this. It's an incredible waste of resources to drive what is effectively a massive ponzi scheme.
If not why the hell would you do this just to have them turn around and tell you they are seizing these bitcoins until you can prove they came from a legit source?
Lets take them to court.
I'm auctioning off $100 bills, starting at $110 each. Get 'em before they're gone!
One of them is a very rare misprint- it has both the back AND the front printed upside down. I'm asking $200 for that one.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I wonder if potential bidders will be allowed to inspect these coins for validity? Would suck to buy $1.6m of Bitcoin to find out they are worthless/already spent.
This would be like buying a box of confiscated iTunes gift cards; which of them have been used or had the PINs copied off before being put in the box?
So I take it you're underwater and hoping the publicized drop in supply will drive prices high enough to put you back in the black?
https://www.usmarshals.gov/ass...