Bitcoin (BTC) has become an asset with mainstream appeal — but before widespread institutional adoption, it was a niche investment whose main utility was, to put it bluntly, being a method of payment for illegal dealings.
Back on November 3, 2020, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) confiscated 69,370 BTC from dark web marketplace Silk Road. At the time, a single Bitcoin was worth roughly $14,000. That same hoard is now worth roughly $6.4 billion in total.
The seized assets have been kept in storage by the Treasury Department since then — and although Battle Born Investments appealed the government’s decision to sell the stash, the appeal was lost on October 7, 2024 — clearing the way for a major sale.
Picks for you
Although not conclusively confirmed, on January 10, several online commentators noted that the address in question made its first outgoing transaction. What can firmly be stated is that this was no sale — as the transaction was worth only $0.51, if legitimate, it’s most likely a precautionary test run of sorts.
Will the Silk Road Bitcoin be liquidated?
One of the first reports regarding the transaction came from a January 10 post made on social media platform X by user CryptosRus. The post contained a screenshot of the Silk Road wallet’s page from blockchain.com — at the time of publication, the page still indicated that $0.51 was sent from the wallet.
However, there is a possibility that this could be an error or a bug — seeing as how other sources do not line up. Per BitInfoCharts, there has been no outgoing transaction — the same is indicated by data from Arkham Intelligence.
At press time, BTC was changing hands at a price of $94,380, after a 3.36% pullback on the weekly chart. Although highly publicized, the potential sale of the Silk Road Bitcoin more than likely coincided with the recent drops in price rather than causing them.
Readers should note that this latest development is not yet fully confirmed — while we urge investors and traders to keep a close eye on the situation as it develops, Finbold was unable to draw a definite conclusion regarding the sale’s veracity from available sources.
Featured image via Shutterstock
