The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a case over the ownership of 69,370 bitcoins seized from the dark web market Silk Road, paving the way for the U.S. government to sell off the $4.38 billion stash of bitcoins in question. Looks like it’s open.
In 2022, a federal court in California issued a judgment against Battle Born Investments, which claimed to have purchased rights to seized Bitcoin through a bankruptcy estate. Battle Born claimed that Raymond Gunn, the debtor in the bankruptcy case, was a mysterious “Individual X” who stole billions of dollars worth of BTC from Silk Road, which was subsequently seized by the US government.
The federal court ruled that it was not convinced that Ngan was really “Person X” and that Battle Born therefore had no valid claim to the seized Bitcoin. The following year, a federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the decision.
Now that the Supreme Court has refused to hear Mr. Battle Born’s case, the issue is more or less at a standstill. This means there are few obstacles left for the government to do what it wants to do with the seized funds: sell the funds.
In recent months, the US government has been on the move over large amounts of Bitcoin seized from the Silk Road. For example, in a two-week period in July and August, approximately $2.6 billion worth of Bitcoin was transferred to new wallets. These moves are typically made in preparation for selling the fund. However, the U.S. Marshals Service has a custody agreement with Coinbase Prime, so the exchange may simply be storing assets for the government.
This dumping has raised concerns about market volatility as governments around the world continue to release large sums of cryptocurrencies seized during enforcement actions.
The question of what the U.S. government should do with bitcoins seized by law enforcement has been active this election cycle. Speaking at a crypto conference in Nashville in July, former President Donald Trump promised to build a “strategic Bitcoin stockpile” if re-elected.
President Trump said at the time: “If elected, I am announcing that it will be the policy of my administration, the United States of America, to retain 100% of the Bitcoin currently held or acquired by the United States government.” said. .
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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