Crypto

The US government approved the sale of 69,370 bitcoins seized from the Silk Road market less than two weeks before Trump’s inauguration. How did it become possible? Will it actually be sold? How does society react to the news?

The Northern District Court of California approved the liquidation of Bitcoin He took over From the Silk Road market in November 2020, years after the black market closed. The decision ends the four-year legal battle over the future of seized cryptocurrencies.

How was consent made possible?

One of the major turns in the legal battle occurred on December 30, 2024, when Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Seaborg rejected a motion to block the seizure of the seized bitcoins. This move allowed the Department of Justice to liquidate Bitcoin associated with the Silk Road.

Does this mean that Bitcoins are about to sell off? No, there is a potential appeal and a series of administrative steps on the way, so it’s difficult to say exactly when a sale could happen, if it happens at all.

Although the Silk Road black market was closed in 2013, the black market wallet was hacked. It was not until 2020 when a person who owned over 69.3 thousand market-linked Bitcoins agreed to release these funds to the government.

One of the entities fighting to obtain these bitcoins was Battle Born Investments, however, in October 2024, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling decreased to take over the case, paving the way for the headline-grabbing sale to be approved on January 9, 2024.

Political text

Last year, during the Nashville Bitcoin Conference, Donald Trump promised that the United States would never sell bitcoins. He said that if elected, the administration would “retain 100% of all bitcoins that the U.S. government currently owns or acquires in the future.” Trump promised that America would create a stock of bitcoins and become the cryptocurrency capital of the world.

The potential sale of seized bitcoins stands in sharp contrast to the intentions of the president-elect and the incoming administration. Some see this as a deliberate undermining of Trump’s policy by current officials as their days are likely to end soon, similar to Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter after Trump’s election victory.

Another possible reason is that the current management does not see Bitcoin as a valuable asset and is in a rush to get rid of it before the bear market begins. As of January 9, 2024, 69,370 Bitcoins are worth approximately $6.55 billion.

Opinions

Immediately after the court approved the confiscated bitcoins, crypto company X found itself busy posting strong reactions to the news. People, including the CEOs of various fintech companies, happily hated the move, repeatedly saying that if the Department of Justice sold these bitcoins, Trump would buy more and perhaps double that amount.

However, some speakers continued to provide deeper insights into the news. For example, David Bailey, CEO of Bitcoin Magazine, noted that selling seized bitcoins that were supposed to be part of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve would have been seen as a “middle finger to voters” because the sale would have legally conflicted with the government’s priorities. President-elect.

Bailey indicated that the Justice Department may see the potential sale as a way to bolster the department’s budget. The Justice Department may not want to hand over $6.55 billion to the new administration and is rushing to spend it.

Custodia Bank CEO and ardent critic of the Choke Point 2.0 process, Caitlin Long, went further, raising the question of the possibility of government insiders buying bitcoins for themselves after the price collapsed by selling confiscated bitcoins during the decline.

Caitlin hints that this could be considered market manipulation, adding that “it’s legal if the government does it.”

Author, entrepreneur, former Senate candidate, and founder of CryptoLawUS John E. Deaton He said In Post

While some headlines read something like “Cryptocurrency Community on Brink” due to potential sale, at the end of the day, these 69.3k Bitcoins are far from a significant share of what Trump or Senator Lummis wants the United States to hold. .