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For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

usmarshals.gov

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Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#91

Post by dragonwriter »

joosters wrote: post #58

Isn't this a bit presumptuous? Ross William Ulbricht hasn't yet been convicted of anything. I know that they aren't selling his personal bitcoins, but in the (highly unlikely) event that he is found innocent, wouldn't that mean that the Silk Road assets need to be returned to him? How then can they sell them now?

> Ross William Ulbricht hasn't yet been convicted of anything. I know that they aren't selling his personal bitcoins, but in the (highly unlikely) event that he is found innocent, wouldn't that mean that the Silk Road assets need to be returned to him?

If they aren't his bitcoins, why would they return them to him? The assets they are selling aren't the ones he has claimed a property interest in, they are the ones that were unclaimed (by him or anyone else) when the forfeiture action was initiated.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/January14/Silk...

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#92

Post by ryan_j_naughton »

alex_duf wrote: post #76
artursapek wrote: post #45

The price has tanked today as a result of this. http://cryptowat.ch/btce/btcusd/1hr/ Market started going crazy earlier today when DPR's seized coins started to move. https://blockchain.info/address/1FfmbHfnpaZjKFvyi1okTjJJusN4... The downtrend is only accelerating.

time to buy.

Damn, I was planning on waiting until it hit a local minimum and then buy a few, but while I was writing the above comment, the price already rebounded from $550 to $590.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#93

Post by swalkergibson »

danielsju6 wrote: post #72
joosters wrote: post #58

Isn't this a bit presumptuous? Ross William Ulbricht hasn't yet been convicted of anything. I know that they aren't selling his personal bitcoins, but in the (highly unlikely) event that he is found innocent, wouldn't that mean that the Silk Road assets need to be returned to him? How then can they sell them now?

Actually forfeiture sucks hard, even if you are found not-guilty you don't really have a chance in hell of recovering assets seized during a drug bust—like your car for instance. You can try to prove your innocence but it doesn't really work in practice.

While there are certainly wanton abuses of civil forfeiture statutes, linked to even in this comment thread, applying them here is a no-brainer. Silk Road was very clearly a marketplace for illegal drugs, and the brokerage fee that DPR collected (whoever he or she is) is clearly illegal.

Again, there are obviously situations where civil forfeiture is improperly utilized. This is not one of them, in my opinion.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#94

Post by GigabyteCoin »

joosters wrote: post #58

Isn't this a bit presumptuous? Ross William Ulbricht hasn't yet been convicted of anything. I know that they aren't selling his personal bitcoins, but in the (highly unlikely) event that he is found innocent, wouldn't that mean that the Silk Road assets need to be returned to him? How then can they sell them now?

I am under the impression that they are auctioning off bitcoins that belonged to "The Silk Road" and not "Ross Ulbricht".

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the bitcoin sitting inside the silkroad wallets was free for the taking by U.S. authorities.

Whether or not Ross Ulbricht's wealth is owed to the U.S. government they're not sure, so they're keeping them until the trial has completed.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#95

Post by artursapek »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #92
alex_duf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

time to buy.

Damn, I was planning on waiting until it hit a local minimum and then buy a few, but while I was writing the above comment, the price already rebounded from $550 to $590.

Just a dead cat bounce. Wait it out.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#96

Post by drdeca »

VMG wrote: post #56
bsder wrote: post #35

It would be funnier if the bitcoin exchanges blocked those blockchains as having been permanently compromised. It would prevent the feds from having an incentive to seize bitcoins.

That's a sword that cuts both ways. If you infrastructure for that kind of filtering became pervasive, you can be sure that government would be dictating which coins (transaction outputs) are compromised and which are clean. Luckily a fork of Bitcoin that included these filter mechanism is unlikely to succeed. Let's keep law enforcement on a separate layer, we didn't put it into TCP either.

Wouldn't this just be the particular exchange making the decision though?

Just, the exchange voluntarily deciding whether or not to accept the trade?

Or did they mean that if the coins were tracked regardless of who they were passed to or through how many people?

I don't see how a person deciding not to trade with a given address(govt), or any address that traded directly with that address(person who bought from govt), is creating any sort of infrastructure.

It could be worked around with by additional transfers of course, or just used directly to purchase things,

But in at least one similar type of thing I don't think it would inherently cause or require any harmful infrastructure/modification to infrastructure, even if it would be pointless.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#97

Post by Ologn »

artursapek wrote: post #45

The price has tanked today as a result of this. http://cryptowat.ch/btce/btcusd/1hr/ Market started going crazy earlier today when DPR's seized coins started to move. https://blockchain.info/address/1FfmbHfnpaZjKFvyi1okTjJJusN4... The downtrend is only accelerating.

Bitcoins are absolutely worthless. If there is any sign of a tech bubble, it is these worthless hashes that people pay hundreds of dollars for.

One of the genius aspects of the Bitcoin scam is the limited output and increasing difficulty as it goes on. This keeps the scam going longer. If it were like tulip bulbs, or subprime real estate, or pets.com type stocks, the bubble would eventually burst. With the types of bubbles we've seen, and the big names in tech willing to associate their names with this scam, keeping a Also keep in mind that the float is not all that high. Many bitcoins have never been traded, especially early ones. That 30k of Bitcoins are going on the market can tank the price so much shows how weak demand is for this worthless "currency".

One aspect of the pied pipers of this scam is that their theories of its value are not falsifiable. My theory is falsifiable - Bitcoins are going to go from a current market cap of over $7 billion to well below $1 billion. There theory is not falsifiable "it's valuable because it's valuable". So if it goes up they're right, if it goes down they're right.

Why are Bitcoins valuable? Anyone thinking of buying an ASIC or a Bitcoin should read from the Bitcoin boosters the answer to this question. There is no answer. Which is why Bitcoin is bound to crash.

It's possible a real online currency might happen. The Bitcoin scam is certainly postponing that day. When Bitcoin crashes, possibly with much legal involvement afterward, VCs will be very hesitant to fund an online currency for years to come.

To me the real currency would have to be something in the realm of Folding@home. I'm not sure how it would work of if its computationally feasible, but I do know people would pay for the results of useful computations such as that.

I would short Bitcoins if I could find a reliable party to do it with, and it were easier to do. That doing that is so difficult is another sign how it's not a real currency.

That this post and any post not buying into the Bitcoin hype is bound to be downvoted is yet another sign of the scam. I rarely have posts downvoted on HN, but any time I am slightly skeptical of Bitcoin's value, the Bitcoin hucksters pile on and downvote anyone questioning the scam into oblivion. It reminds me of how MLM people act on the Internet.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#98

Post by dragonwriter »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #65
joosters wrote: post #58

Isn't this a bit presumptuous? Ross William Ulbricht hasn't yet been convicted of anything. I know that they aren't selling his personal bitcoins, but in the (highly unlikely) event that he is found innocent, wouldn't that mean that the Silk Road assets need to be returned to him? How then can they sell them now?

It is presumptuous, but that is how civil forfeiture works. Its atrocious. Take a look at this well written article by the New Yorker Taken: The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_...

While there are real issues with civil forfeiture raised in that article, they largely don't apply here -- this isn't a case where the government said "let us seize your assets and we won't prosecute you" (using it as an extortion mechanism) or where the cost of contesting forfeiture exceeds the value of the assets.

Its a case where Ulbricht chose to assert a claim on certain seized property and not on others, either because he is not, in fact, DPR (which is what he claims) and didn't want to steal property that wasn't his, or because he is actually is DPR but admitting that he owned the Silk Road servers and bitcoins would make his conviction more likely because it would make it harder for him to deny being the guy behind Silk Road.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#99

Post by GigabyteCoin »

ssharp wrote: post #33
Alupis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Street value of approx: $17,330,000 USD I'd wager it will sell for much less, likely 3/4 of that street price.

It's not a great look for the BitCoin market if you can buy in bulk at 75%.

Look at the restrictions, though.

Potential bidders must have $200,000 USD Deposit sent to the U.S. Marshalls from a U.S. bank account by 9am June 16th (~2 business days from now).

That disqualifies a good 99.9999% of the world from being eligible to bid.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#100

Post by dragonwriter »

grondilu wrote: post #71
joosters wrote: post #58

Isn't this a bit presumptuous? Ross William Ulbricht hasn't yet been convicted of anything. I know that they aren't selling his personal bitcoins, but in the (highly unlikely) event that he is found innocent, wouldn't that mean that the Silk Road assets need to be returned to him? How then can they sell them now?

If this happens (though it is very unlikely indeed), the bitcoins could be bought back or Ulbricht could receive an indemnity in US dollars.

No, if Ulbricht had claimed the bitcoins were his (which would be kind of hard when he is also claiming that he isn't the guy behind the Silk Road), they would have remained seized as evidence but would not have been forfeited without further proceedings. They were forfeited because no one, including Ulbricht, claimed them (unlike the bitcoins that were seized from his personal computer that he did claim.)
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