One of the biggest fears of Bitcoiners is that the mountains of coins held by the US and Japanese governments, from their investigations of Silk Road and Mt.Gox respectively, will be dumped onto the open market. The market for bitcoin is notoriously shallow, with very low volumes, so it would just take 28,500 bitcoin to crash the price to $1.50.
To get a shot at a lot of 3k, with one orphan lot of ~2.6k bitcoins, you’ll need to get $200,000, a government ID, and fill out a form by June 23rd. If the USMS like you, you’ll get access to their online auction on the 27th of June from 6 am to 6 pm, to try and win a block. It’s unlikely any one person will get all 10 blocks, but if they begin liquidating them… Let’s just say I’ll be watching the Winkdex starting June 30th, when the USMS send the winners their bitcoins.
In June, after busting the first iteration of darknet marketplace Silk Road, the U.S. Marshals Service auctioned off 30,000 bitcoins it seized from the site’s operator. On Monday, the USMS announced the sale of another 50,000 bitcoin. But potential investors should be wary, as last time these came to auction,…
During the US Marshals' silent auction for the $18 million bitcoins seized in the government raid of Silk Road, the US government proved they can completely screw up even the simplest of online tasks. They revealed the identities of 40 anonymous bidders by CC-ing instead of BCC-ing contacts in an email. The email in…
Bitcoins are the next best thing to using cash on the internet: totally anonymous and tied to no central bank, the digital currency allows for peer-to-peer transactions across the web without the possibility of being identified. In the past, uses for Bitcoins have been somewhat limited: web properties like Wordpress…
