The US Marshals Service (USMS) has revealed it is likely to auction off any remaining bitcoins confiscated from convicted Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht sometime in 2015.

In total, the USMS seized more than 144,000 BTC (then worth $122m) from Ulbricht in late 2013 along with 29,655 BTC held in wallets on the online black market at the time of its closure.

The event will be the final auction involving bitcoins from the Silk Road investigation, with 44,336 BTC ($10m at press time) being offered up to prospective investors.

A spokesperson for the USMS told CoinDesk:

“We still don’t have any dates to announce, but do expect to [hold the event] before the end of the year.”

To date, the USMS has held three auctions open to qualified members of the US public in a bid to auction off the assets.

The most recent event, held in March, saw 14 bidders vie to purchase 50,000 BTC (then worth $13.4m), with secretive bitcoin firm Cumberland Mining winning the majority – 47,000 – of the bitcoin up for sale.

US Marshals image via Wikipedia