Author
Tatsiana Yablonskaya
Taking strong interest in blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and IoT, Tatsiana Yablonskaya got deep understanding of the emerging techs believing in their potential to drive the future.
New York-based bitcoin exchange itBit won five blocks of the digital currency which is equal approximately to 10,000 bitcoins.
The final auction for bitcoins seized during the raid of the Silk Road marketplace was held by the U.S. Marshals Service on November 5. Although it’s known that the online auction lasted 6 hours and the total amount of 44,341 bitcoins was sold, the Marshals Service didn’t reveal any particular details about the winners.
Let us remind that the Silk Road market was started almost 5 years ago, in January 2011. Two years ago its founder Ross Ulbricht was arrested for using the platform for money laundering and drug trafficking. According to the available information in total more than 144,000 bitcoins was confiscated after the arrest. The United States Marshals Service also seized about 29,000 bitcoins from cryptocurrency wallets related to the online black market.
The recent auction is the last one in the series. It drew 11 registered bidders and 30 bids. The auction included 21 blocks of 2,000 bitcoins and one block of over 2,341 bitcoins. The U.S. Marshals Service announced: “These bitcoins were held in wallet files that resided on certain computer hardware belonging to Ross William Ulbricht, that were seized on or about October 24, 2013”.
The first auctions for confiscated bitcoins took place in June and December 2014 for nearly 80,000 bitcoins with one more auction for 50,000 bitcoins held in March 2015.
Yesterday the first information about the winners of the auction appeared. Bitcoin exchange itBit located in New York announced it had won five blocks of the digital currency. It means that the company added at least 10,000 bitcoins to its funds.
It’s not the first time that itBit takes part in auctions held by the Marshals service. It won 3,000 of 50,000 bitcoins at the auction in March.
This year for itBit is also marked by the first license in New York state it got from the New York State Department of Financial Services. In May the bitcoin exchange finally got its charter and status of banklike company after almost a year of attempts to create a procedure of virtual currencies control. The process was neither easy nor low-cost but management of the company expressed confidence that it would pay for itself. They focus first of all on large investors and financial organizations. The company was founded more than three years ago by the team of several people with great working experience at world leading enterprises. It has already overcome a great way for these years letting us hope that it is only the beginning.
Returning to the auction it’s necessary to note that Genesis Global Trading wasn’t that lucky. Although its interest in bitcoin is quite obvious – the company develops businesses that work with bitcoin and other digital currencies – it didn’t win any of the blocks up for auction.
