By far, the biggest news of the week is that the US Marshals Service will be auctioning off 50k bitcoin this Thursday. It is a sealed auction and all bids need to be submitted between 8AM and 2PM EST on December 4th. On Friday the USMS will notify the winning bidders privately. There will be no public release of the winning bidder unless the winner chooses to disclose it.



Some of you may recall the Marshals Service auctioning off 30k bitcoin in June to Venture Capitalist Tim Draper. Both batches of bitcoin were part of the Silk Road seizure that happened last year, but the first batch were unclaimed user funds on the site, while this batch is part of a total of 144k bitcoin seized directly from alleged Silk Road operator, Ross Ulbricht. After the sale, the USMS will still own 94k bitcoin that will be auctioned off at a future date.



Due to the open nature of the blockchain, anyone can view the wallet containing the seized bitcoin here



Editor's Note : In last week's newsletter we incorrectly stated that the USMS would still own 64k BTC after the sale rather than 94k BTC.