By
Bhushan Akolkar
January 26th, 2024
The US Marshals has inadvertently leaked a list of the potential participants in the Silk Road bitcoin auction that will be held on June 27th.
The U.S. Marshals, the federal law enforcement agency, has announced last week that they projected to auction off $18 million worth bitcoin that were seized from the online drug store website Silk Road.
This huge amount of cryptocurrency will be sold to anyone who wants to enter the bitcoin industry. But the list of people who will take part in the auction has accidentally leaked.
The information about the potential bidders was revealed after the US Marshals intended to send an informational update for the interested parties but instead sent a message with recipients.
The event, which will be pursued on June 27th, will include such bitcoin companies as Pantera Capital, Second Market, Binary Financial and Bitcoin Investment Trust.
Harry Yeh, Binary Financial managing partner, told CoinDesk the company’s participation the auction is of great importance: “It’s just one of those big plays that you have to be involved with if you’re a big player. […] It’s very rare that you have the opportunity to source such a large block of coins.”
Yen said that purchasing cryptocurrency from the US government provides more benefits than buying them on the open market. He also noted that SecondMarket is prepared for certain movements on the day of the auction that might influence the company.
He said: “We expect on the day for there to be increase volume of trading and heavy selling pressure.”
Bitcoin Investment Trust and SecondMarket invited investors to take part in the bitcoin auction through their recent publication.
SecondMarket CEO Barry Silbert stated: “Our syndicate will open up bidding to a much larger field of smaller purchasers, foreign buyers and bidders who don’t want their identity revealed to the US government.”
Silbert also noted that prospective bidders need to have a US bank account and also have to make their identity known to the US government. But he said that these requirements do not relate to SecondMarket members.
It is still unknown whether the US government will reveal the auction results and publish the names of the bitcoin owners.
Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead did not comment about their bidding strategy, explaining that the firm want to protect their interests. Still, he indicated that there is growing interest in the Silk Road auction among investors.
“We’ve seen a lot of new investors come to us to talk about the auction, so I think it’s good for the community,” Morehead said.
The auction is expected to face a high competition among the bidders. The total amount of 29,657 BTC will be divided into ten blocks of 3,000 BTC with one block of 2,656.51306529 BTC. The USMS also informed that those participants who will make bids on multiple blocks could receive any number of blocks.