U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Government Sold $216M of Seized Silk Road Bitcoin This Month

coindesk.com

53 pointswslh51 comments

> With respect to the 51,351.89785803 Bitcoin forfeited in the Ulbricht case before Judge Schofield, the Government has begun liquidating (selling) it. On March 14, 2023, the Government sold 9,861.1707894 BTC (of the 51,351.89785803 BTC) for a total of $215,738,154.98.

How and where would a sale like this take place? An auction? Is there any public information about this sale?

The Marshals Service auctions seized property. https://jlopp.github.io/us-marshals-bitcoin-auctions/ Here's an example of a previous one: https://www.usmarshals.gov/what-we-do/asset-forfeiture/sale-...

I've seen bitcoin for sale on GSA auctions before. But $200 million seems like a lot for a single auction

What’s amazing is the BTC price didn’t hiccup at all and continues its 2023 bull run. That proves the markets are deep and liquid, and selling 0.04% of the market cap OTC doesn’t cause a blip.

I think it's irresponsible and unnecessary to suggest that the USD/BTC conversion is anything but highly variable. This market is highly fickle, prone to hype, fud, and fomo. There is also still a large international regulatory risk associated with BTC when considered as an asset.

I doubly find discussions viewing BTC primarily as an asset class to miss the point of BTC. Maybe the point of BTC has changed in the last 10 years, and I'm behind the curve on this one.

> I doubly find discussions viewing BTC primarily as an asset class to miss the point of BTC. Maybe the point of BTC has changed in the last 10 years, and I'm behind the curve on this one.

If the price of bitcoin goes up, it's good, because it's a value store and/or a good investment! If you think it's for anonymous payments, you're missing the point.

If the price of bitcoin goes down, it's not a problem, because it's a method of anonymous payments. If you think it's an investment or value store, you're missing the point.

> because it's a method of anonymous payments

Clarification: Bitcoin is not anonymous. It would be better to call it pseudonomous.

The blockchain remembers transactions and transactions on the main chain are public. Once an investigator gets access to a BTC wallet, they can understand where all of the inflows and outflows went. Even without access to the wallet, some of that can be pieced together from public blockchain data (assuming a single wallet is used).

My understanding is that other cryptocurrencies like Monero are far closer to anonymous.

Also worth mentioning that cash is anonymous (to the extent that your counterparties don’t track every bill’s serial number).

BTC’s value prop over cash is that it can be sent across distance/borders faster than cash can travel and ownership can be maintained with as little as knowledge of a few words.

I believe the price of Bitcoin is completely fixed by the exchanges themselves, so it doesn’t surprise me.

Given there are thousands of spot markets I find it absurdly unlikely that a cartel could fix the price let alone keep such a conspiracy secret.

Allegedly whales set the price on Binance and arbitrage bots equalize the price on every other exchange.

And this is based on what information? Sounds very theoretical

I only know of Coinbase. It doesn’t really matter how many exchanges there are, its about the capital, any way you spin it they have more capital then their customers so they set the supply and demand. When they lose a lot of customers, they just burn cash to drive the price up. That’s why they keep failing.

I think the fact you “only know of coinbase” proves you know very little about what you are talking about, and have formed an erroneous conspiracy theory based on inadequate knowledge.

I don’t want to be antagonistic, but I have heard of many exchanges as I perused these forums through the years. FTX, Mt. Gox, Binance. So what probably should have said was, “It’s the only exchange I know that is still operating that I as a PNC bank customer can use, that I know of.”

Literally impossible.

Not with Tether around.

But many exchanges have been caught doing this already. FTX for example was clearly price fixing by using there own coins to prop up bitcoin.

It's the opposite, FTX was selling customer BTC to prop up their own coins.

This is also a clear example of how difficult it is to prop up a coin, even relatively illiquid ones like the FTX coins. FTX could sort of prop up their own coins, but not really. They couldn't move prices high enough to keep lenders from recalling capital, and they couldn't support prices at all when there was a confidence crisis before the collapse.

So you believe that globally, all of the thousands of exchanges in various jurisdictions all over the world are colluding, including Fidelity and every other regulated US exchange? What about bitcoin-only companies that don't do any business in altcoins? How are they managing to prop up the price?

It's reasonable to believe the market price is crazy. But it's crazy to believe the market's mere existence is a huge conspiracy theory 15 years in the making. Just call the buyers irrational if you must.

And don't forget FTX was an offshore shitcoin casino that held exactly 0 bitcoin when it collapsed. It's a stretch comparing that to regulated US exchanges.

Over these thousands of exchanges relatively little fiat money actually flows. If the real value of BTC over the total market is $x and I’m Coinbase and I have > $x amount of real cash, I now can completely fix the price and the competition just becomes more parties to scam.

> Over these thousands of exchanges relatively little fiat money actually flows.

citation needed

So you believe Fidelity and Coinbase have been lying in their corporate disclosures for the past 10 years, along with thousands of other companies all over the world, just so they could throw hundreds of billions of dollars of their own money into a black hole, to prop up a trillion-dollar asset class for 10 years running... why? Just for fun?

Do you also believe the Nasdaq doesn't actually exist?

Yes I believe the exchanges lie, if you think they don’t you obviously don’t follow the news.

You'd have a more successful time arguing they were propping up Ethereum.

Even then, what about the dozens if not hundreds of other places to trade for BTC...?

And, to save you and others telling you, some time: exchanges are not the only markets. DEX is a huge factor.

apparently, unlike ordinary HN people US Gov don't care it "can't buy a coffee in my local deli for Bitcoin"

They auctioned it off so they could get useful currency that the gov could spend.

Same as when they auction off other proceeds of crime. Cars, properties, small planes, jet skis, jewelry...

Bitcoin doesn't care if you liquidate hundreds of millions of it, exchanges fail, customers are scammed with Superbowl commercials, Hacker News commenters crying for than a decade about how Bitcoin has 'no value', etc.. The fundamentals hold. 14 years and still going strong.

I think that Bitcoin is an absurd waste of time and effort, but if I had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of it floating around, of course I’m going to sell it.

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