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The U.S. Marshals Service held its first auction of bitcoins in June, and now it’s planning an even bigger one for Dec. 4.
Like the June 27 auction, the 50,000 bitcoins to be auctioned by sealed bid were seized in October 2013 from Ross Ulbricht, the alleged operator of the Silk Road underground market for trading illegal goods that the FBI shut down. The Marshals Service is planning the December auction in connection with federal civil and criminal charges filed against Ulbricht in U.S. District Court in New York.
A Bitcoin was selling for $384.81 as of Monday afternoon, according to the Bitcoin wallet and tracking service Coinbase.com, meaning that the amount set for auction is currently worth $19.2 million.
The 50,000 bitcoins will sell in 20 blocks during the six-hour auction: Series A has 10 blocks of 2,000 bitcoins, while Series B has 10 blocks of 3,000 bitcoins, the Marshals Service said in a news release. Series A has a deposit requirement of $100,000 while the required deposit for Series B is $150,000. The winning bidder or bidders will be notified Dec. 5.
Bidders must file all registration documents by noon Eastern Dec. 1 via email. Registrations for the earlier auction are invalid. More information can be accessed here.
Venture capitalist Timothy Draper planned to use the nearly 30,000 bitcoins he won in the June auction to fund a Bitcoin trading platform targeting emerging markets. The price he paid was not disclosed. The bitcoins were worth $17.4 million at market prices shortly before the auction, when a single bitcoin was selling for $585.
