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Posted on 01/17/2014 4:39:54 AM PST by Errant
The 29,655 bitcoins seized by US law enforcement agents from defunct online black market Silk Road will be liquidated by the US government, a 16th January press release from the US Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York confirmed.
US District Judge J. Paul Oetken signed off on the forfeiture order on Thursday, clearing the government to sell the assets, which as of press time are worth more than $25m.
While no timetable for the sale was issued, the development brings the government one step closer to unloading its Silk Road holdings, estimated to be 1.5 percent of all bitcoins, onto the general market. The US Attorney’s Office also estimated the value of the stash a little higher.
(Excerpt) Read more at coindesk.com ...
OK I have a general question about this.
How is it determined who owns a bitcoin. Isn’t it just a digital number? Why couldn’t bunches of copies be made? Is there some central registry?
I guess I just don’t understand the whole bitcoin thing
At its heart, it's a distributed ledger system based on a limited number of available "units" (i.e., Bitcoins). This link should get you started toward a better understanding:
And this:
Still Don’t Get Bitcoin? Here’s an Explanation Even a Five-Year-Old Will Understand
To make matters worse, there are now over one hundred of these cryptocurrencies...
Our greedy government needs cash, so this is no surprise. It’s just about killed the private sect,r and it has millions of votes to buy.
The problem with that is that all of the gold ever mined in the history of man will only fund it for the next two or three years at at most.
We only have 2 to 3 trillion in gold? Yikes! We need a flat tax ASAP so that everyone pays taxes and those of us that pay way more of our share get a break. Companies need to pay 10 percent. No deductions or exemptions for anyone. That would be more than enough to pay for defense and the debt.
Is this tacit approval of Bitcoin on the governments part?
For once I hope that everybody involved in Bitcoins drives their price down so low just prior to this sale that the USG holdings aren’t worth enough to buy an overcooked discount hotdog after a football game is over. Then once the sale is made, return Bitcoins to their former value.
“US Government Announces it Will Sell $25m Worth of Silk Road Bitcoins”
I assume the writer means $25MM (twenty-five million) rather than $25M (twenty-five thousand).
I’m increasingly seeing careless writers use M for MM in stories.
K is the symbol for thousand, not M.
“K is the symbol for thousand, not M”
I know mcf is 1,000 cubit feet and mmBTU is 1,000,000 BTUs. Maybe we have competing symbols used in different areas or fields then.
Pardonne-moi.
If there was a business that was engaging in illegal activity and accepting baseball cards as payment from customers, the government would seize the baseball cards and sell them if they had any value. It wouldn’t indicate an “approval” by the government of the cards being used as legal tender.
Well you don't see them auctioning off drugs after a bust... ;)
I think we need a government that lives within OUR means, not one that spends at the whim of a fictional leader who if not for our enemies would at best be chasing ambulances in Chicago.
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