There’s been a lot of chatter when it comes to the second bitcoin auction held recent by the United States Marshals Service (USMS). Overall, though, it’s been somewhat of a mystery, with the general public not being made aware of who’s won what.
We’ve heard from Timothy Draper that he’s managed to pick up 2,000 bitcoins out of the 50,000 bitcoins that were put up for auction (if you’ll recall, he won the entire first auction held by the Marshals earlier this year), and now we’re learning some juicy details from Barry Silbert.
You’re probably aware that Barry Silbert is well known in the bitcoin/cryptocurrency community. He’s the former CEO of Second Market, and he’s currently managing his Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT), and he’s said on Monday that the second syndicate the Trust formed (the first being earlier this year) in addition to a “trading division affiliate” have won the remaining 48,000 bitcoins in this second-round auction, worth $16.8 million at the time of this writing.
The announcement was made via Twitter.
Announcement: the syndicate we organized in conjunction with our trading division affiliate won 48,000 #bitcoin in the US Marshals auction
— Bitcoin Trust (@BitcoinTrust) December 9, 2014
Silbert and the Bitcoin Investment Trust have been closely watching the United States Marshals’ bitcoin auctions as a way to build up a pool of bitcoins for their own operation.
There’s disappointment here, though. Silbert has not disclosed at which price the pool of bitcoins were acquired for. Were they at market price? Below? Above? Draper hasn’t disclosed what he paid for his lot of bitcoins, and we don’t expect Silbert to do the same, really.
The bitcoins auctioned off were originally from the illicit Silk Road marketplace, taken down by federal authorities in late 2013. More bitcoins are expected to be auctioned off at a later time.