U.S. Government takes over 69370 BTC from Silk Road

69370 BTC was taken over by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). The money associated with the former Silk Road black market is now in the hands of the DOJ. The U.S. government has asked a court in California to block and confiscate the entire amount of intercepted cryptocurrecies. BTC, BTG, BSV, BCH were at the address that held nearly one billion dollars. 

The Department of Justice joined forces with Blockchain investigators like Chainalysis. It was not possible to identify the person who moved such a large sum of money, and a court document described him as an "individual X". Perhaps the hacker who stole the crypto from an address associated with Silk Road was an individual or government specialist.

We know that firstly individual X took over almost a billion dollars from a former Silk Road account and then the United States government found the address and intercepted it. Due to the amount of funds, this is the largest crypto acquisition in history.

BTC move worth about $960 million could mean the transfer of assets by Ulbricht. At the same time, there is a chance that someone managed to crack an encrypted wallet file that has been circulating on hacking forums for 2 years. Unfortunately, it is not clear by whom and in what nature the money was transferred. The only fact is that 69370 BTC is currently in DOJ hands.

It is hard to say what will happen with the confiscated Bitcoins. It is likely that the government will decide to sell them as it did in the past. In 2014 the U.S. government put BTC from Silk Road up for auction. Investor Tim Draper bought as much as 30000 BTC for only 632 dollars. Bitcoins were dormant for years, so their confiscation probably played no role in BTC's recent price increase. On the contrary, if the government drops such a quantity of BTC on the market, it is possible that the price will fall.