{"id":20145,"date":"2025-01-09T10:33:33","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T08:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/us-authorities-cleared-to-sell-6-58bn-of-silk-road-bitcoin\/"},"modified":"2025-01-09T10:33:33","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T08:33:33","slug":"us-authorities-cleared-to-sell-6-58bn-of-silk-road-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/us-authorities-cleared-to-sell-6-58bn-of-silk-road-bitcoin\/","title":{"rendered":"US authorities cleared to sell $6.58bn of Silk Road bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On December 30, 2024, the US Department of Justice obtained federal court approval to liquidate 69,370 BTC ($6.58bn at current prices) confiscated from the Silk Road darknet marketplace, DB News reported.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The US Govt has been given the greenlight to liquidate 69,000 BTC ($6.5B) from Silk Road, an official confirmed to DB News today<\/p>\n<p>Interesting situation less than 2 weeks away from the new admin who vowed to not sell <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HqD1KnhJK3\">https:\/\/t.co\/HqD1KnhJK3<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xn8ATSEL7H\">pic.twitter.com\/xn8ATSEL7H<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 db (@tier10k) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tier10k\/status\/1877176406905356670?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 9, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In October, Battle Born Investment, which had asserted claims to the seized assets through bankruptcy proceedings, <a href=\"https:\/\/supremecourt.gov\/orders\/courtorders\/100724zor_4gdj.pdf\">lost<\/a> in court. The group sought to reveal the identity of the person known as Individual X, who hacked Silk Road. It was from him that the authorities seized the bitcoins.<\/p>\n<p>Battle Born Investment\u2019s lawyer described the ruling as \u201canother egregious example of the Department of Justice\u2019s abuse of the civil asset forfeiture process\u201d. According to him, the authorities used \u201cprocedural tricks\u201d to avoid consideration of the case on the merits.<\/p>\n<p>For its part, the department pressed for selling the cryptocurrency during the proceedings, citing its volatility. A Justice Department representative said that \u201cthe government intends to act in accordance with the ruling in this case\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>The last time the US <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/us-government-transfers-10000-silk-road-btc-to-coinbase-2\">moved<\/a> Silk Road\u2013linked funds was in early December 2024, sending 10,000 BTC to Coinbase Prime. <\/p>\n<p>At the time of writing, the government in aggregate <a href=\"https:\/\/platform.arkhamintelligence.com\/explorer\/address\/bc1qa5wkgaew2dkv56kfvj49j0av5nml45x9ek9hz6\">controls<\/a> 203,239 BTC.<\/p>\n<p>In December 2023, an appeals court formally recorded the forfeiture of 69,370 BTC that belonged to Silk Road, shuttered more than a decade ago. The funds were seized in November 2020.<\/p>\n<p>In April 2024, a wallet controlled by the US government holding 30,174 BTC <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/us-government-transfers-2000-btc-to-coinbase\">initiated a transfer of ~2,000 BTC<\/a> to a Coinbase Prime address.<\/p>\n<p>The US Marshals Service <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/coinbase-to-serve-as-custodian-for-seized-bitcoins-by-u-s-marshals\">selected<\/a> this service to provide custody and liquidation of high-capitalisation cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On December 30, 2024, the US Department of Justice obtained federal court approval to liquidate 69,370 BTC ($6.58bn at current prices) confiscated from the Silk Road darknet marketplace, DB News reported. The US Govt has been given the greenlight to liquidate 69,000 BTC ($6.5B) from Silk Road, an official confirmed to DB News today Interesting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1172,236,26],"class_list":["post-20145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-seized-bitcoins","tag-silk-road","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"34","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}