back to article US marshals leak list of possible Bitcoin buyers

The U.S. Marshals Service's auction for the for 29,656.51306529 Bitcoin it seized from online recreational pharmaceuticals purveyor Silk Road has gone off the rails after the Service accidentally spilled a list of interested parties. Coindesk reports that an email sent to those asking for information about the auction listed …

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  1. 's water music

    mismatched metaphors

    The U.S. Marshals Service's auction for the for 29,656.51306529 Bitcoin it seized from online recreational pharmaceuticals purveyor Silk Road has gone off the rails after the Service accidentally spilled a list of interested parties... ...The mess is not expected to derail the auction.

  2. batfastad

    Guilty?

    A genuine question...

    Can they sell off someone's assets before they've got a conviction, or even a trial?

    Or is probably guilty now officially good enough in the eyes of the law?

    1. DNTP

      Re: Guilty?

      http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/special/forfeiture.html

      Yes they can. If assets are suspected to be connected to drug dealing, then they are "tainted" and are just as illegal to possess as drugs themselves. So fortunately there are honest and honorable officers to help relive people of these illegal burdens.

      Since department funding and officer salaries come directly out of the sale of seized drug assets, and some departments even have seizure quotas, and police officers are all unprejudiced public servants… well you can see where this is going.

    2. Brangdon

      Re: Guilty?

      The keys for these coins were held on the machine that ran the Silk Road. No-one is claiming to own them (because they would be incriminating themselves if they did so), so there is no-one to try. The chap they think ran the Silk Road has his own stash of coins, which won't be sold until after his trial (and then only if he's found guilty).

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Let AOL buy it

    They make awesome deals

  4. Simon Rockman

    This is all going to be very bad for bitcoin

    No-one who wants to hide their wealth is going to give the US Marshals service a goverment issued photo ID and a $200,000 wired deposit. It was announced at quite short notice so pretty much the only people who could apply will be companies with $200,000 sitting in a US bank account.

    That narrows the field to companies which are reputable in the US and don't worry about what message buying bitcoin sends and who have ~$1m to spend on a lot.

    Which is a small number of bidders. The vast majority who will have the profile of wanting to buy cheap from the auction and then see a return by selling, at least a substantial part, through exchanges. Of course they won't dump the coins but will trickle out at a sell value.

    Then the US marshalls will announce the sale of the rest of the coins they have something like 144,000 of them. That's 10% of the coins in circulation.

    1. Brangdon

      Re: This is all going to be very bad for bitcoin

      Mining generates 3,600 new coins a day, so 30,000 coins is less than 9 days worth. It's not a big volume.

  5. Acme Fixer

    For some reason..

    I had the notion that all drug money forfeitures were to be deposited into the US Treasury. Of course how it's spent may be another matter. I love to watch Frontline, next to 60 Minutes it's my fave documentary program.

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