US To Sell Silk Road Haul

While it's the first major US crypto sale this year, onlookers say it's a drop in the bucket compared to recent Grayscale ETF outflows.

Author

Luke Ostapchuk
February 01, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

The US government is auctioning off nearly 3,000 bitcoin (~$130 million) seized from Silk Road criminals and a rogue Secret Service agent. While it's the first major US crypto sale this year, onlookers say it's a drop in the bucket compared to recent Grayscale ETF outflows.

Key details:

  • The bitcoin haul comes from former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges' forfeiture.

  • The sale represents just 1.5% of the government's ~215,000 Bitcoin stash (worth ~$9 billion).

Zoom out: The U.S. government holds a significant amount of Bitcoin from criminal cases, including the 94,000 bitcoin seized from the 2016 Bitfinex hack (which will now be an Amazon film 🙂), the 69,000 bitcoin originally seized from Silk Road, and the 51,000 bitcoin seized from Silk Road hacker James Zhong.

Bottom line: This is but a small step in the government’s cryptoasset management dance. With a sizeable bitcoin stash, any future sales could have a large impact on the market. But for now, it's just a blip on the radar.

Bonus: Remember Tim Draper? In 2014, he bought around 30,000 BTC (worth ~$1.2 billion today) in a government auction for roughly $18 million. Wonder if he’ll be back for seconds…