O The US government has announced this this Thursday (25) that will sell $130 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC). seized from Silk Road, the infamous illegal digital marketplace known for money laundering and drug trafficking.
The sale was approved by the US Justice Department as a result of a trial held in August last year. The sales permit did not take effect until December 2023, as government documents show.
According to the US court statement, two batches of bitcoin will be sold, one containing 2,800 bitcoins for $129 million, and another smaller batch of 58 bitcoins for approximately $3 million.
The American court also states that the bitcoins in question are linked to this Ryan Faracesentenced last year to 4.5 years in prison on charges of conspiracy and money laundering.
He and his father were found guilty of using bitcoin to launder drug trafficking money.
“According to his guilty pleas and other court documents, Ryan Farace was convicted in November 2018 in the U.S. District Court in Maryland of a scheme to [Xanax] in exchange for Bitcoin through sales on darknet markets.”according to the Ministry of Justice.
The US government could put R$6 billion into Bitcoin on the market
The United States government is one of the largest holders of bitcoin in the world and has held several sales and auctions of seized coins over the years as part of its crackdown on illegal activities related to cryptocurrencies.
One of the most notable sales took place in March 2023, when the US government sold 9,861 Bitcoins for a total of $215.5 million, equivalent to approximately R$1 billion.
The sale was related to the 2012 Silk Road hack and the bitcoins sold were part of a larger batch of 51,351 bitcoins seized. The US government still has approximately 41,490 bitcoins from this batch, which will also be sold, giving a total value of approximately R$6 billion.
In another move, the US government transferred about 8,200 bitcoins to new addresses, with a total value of about R$1.2 billion. These transfers were related to previous seizures and indicated a possible preparation for more Bitcoin sales in the market.
In February 2020, the US government held an auction of 4,000 bitcoins, divided into lots, as part of an administrative seizure. This was the largest Bitcoin auction since 2018, raising a total of $37 million.
Several similar auctions have been held in recent years, including the sale of 3,800 bitcoins in February 2018 and another 600 in October of the same year.
It is worth noting that the US government failed to capitalize on Bitcoin’s rise in almost all sales. In the first case, the government sold a lottery ticket for $215.5 million (R$1 billion) and shortly afterwards the bitcoins were valued at $290.7 million (R$1.44 billion).
Some even joked that the government has traded a scarce resource for something they can print endlessly.
Finally, while the US government continues to sell bitcoins seized in the past, it is still one of the largest holders of the digital currency, with more than 200,000 bitcoins in its pocket, as shown by official government documents.
Some investors suspect that the US has an interest in keeping such currencies for itself. After all, despite its volatility, Bitcoin has proven to be a good store of value since it was created and can be a good alternative to gold.
Source: Live Coins
Barry Siefert is an accomplished journalist and author at The Nation View. He is known for his expertise in the field of cryptocurrency, and has written extensively on the topic. With a background in finance and economics, Barry has a deep understanding of the underlying technology and market forces that drive the crypto industry.
