The US government will auction off the last 40,000 Silk Road Bitcoins

According to coindesk, the United States Marshals Service (USMS) has announced that it will hold an online auction on 11月5日to collect the remaining 44341 BTC from Silk Road. As of press time, these bitcoins are worth approximately $10.6 million.

The specific time of the auction is from 12:00 to 18:00 UTC on the same day. The six-hour auction is open only to pre-registered bidders. This auction is also the final Bitcoin auction after the US government launched a civil forfeiture action against Ross Ulbricht, the owner of Silk Road.

The agency went on to say:

“The auction registration period begins on October 19 and runs until noon on November 2. At that time, potential bidders must complete all registrations. In addition, registrations for previous Silk Road Bitcoin auctions will be invalid and interested bidders must resubmit their registrations.”

The U.S. Marshals Service seized more than 144,000 BTC from Ulbricht in late 2013 (worth $122 million at the time). To date, the Marshals Service has held three successful public auctions for bitcoin, selling a total of about 100,000 BTC.

The most recent auction took place in March this year, with 12 bidders winning a total of 50,000 BTC. Among them, the mysterious Bitcoin company Cumberland Mining won 47,000 BTC, becoming the biggest winner of the third auction.

In the first and second auctions, Tim Draper, general manager of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, won a total of 31,656 BTC, while the bidding group consisting of the Bitcoin Investment Trust and the SecondMarket trading department won the second auction and got 48,000 BTC.

The auction will be divided into 21 blocks of 2000币each, while the remaining 2,341 BTC will be sold in a single block. According to the Marshals Service, the winning bidder will receive a notification of the winning bid on 11月6日.

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