Tim Draper Wins Silk Road Bitcoin Auction: California Venture Capitalist Wins 29,656 Bitcoins Valued at $20 Million
Not long after the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) announced updates about its recent auction of Bitcoins that were seized from the online black market known as Silk Road, the federal agency announced that a single bidder has emerged as the take-all winner.
The auction just ended after almost 30,000 Bitcoins were put up for bidding in 10 different blocks. According to Coin Desk, a single undisclosed bidder managed to claim all of the bitcoins that were up for grabs.
According to the USMS, the unidentified bidder outbid all other parties to claim all of the 10 auction blocks and resulting in the conclusion of the auction. The Bitcoin trading service website Blockchain added that the Bitcoins have already been transferred to the winning bidder.
The auction took place over a 12-hour span last Friday and the USMS said that the service would be notifying bidders if they were able to secure any of the blocks by June 30. A total of 29,656 Bitcoins were seized and put into the auction and the total amount of Bitcoins was divided into 10 blocks where the first nine consisted of 3,000 Bitcoins each and the tenth block with 2,656 Bitcoins.
Considering the current price of Bitcoin hovering at around $650 per coin, the total market value of the 30,000 Bitcoin at auction is about $20 million. The auction appears to have caused a spike from $570 per Bitcoin to almost $655 on Tuesday towards the end of the auction.
Several well-known key players in the Bitcoin industry were reported to have participated in the auction and many of them stated that they did not win. Every confirmed participant was required to make a $200,000 deposit to a government bank in order to register. A total of 42 bidders and 186 bids were placed through the bidding process. The winner has been revealed to be venture capitalist Tim Draper.
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