US Marshals to Auction Over $50 Million in Bitcoin (Full Details)

The U.S. Marshals Service has announced that it will auction over 3,800 bitcoins this month.

The auction will take place on January 22 and per standard federal agency auction, the bitcoin, "approximately 3,813.0481935" will be divided into blocks for bidding.

"The auction will take place during a six-hour period Jan. 22 from 9:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. EST. Bids will be accepted by email from preregistered bidders only. The 3,813 bitcoins are offered for sale in 11 blocks: five blocks of 500 bitcoins, five blocks of 100 bitcoins and one block of approximately 813 bitcoins." 

One can't help but note the "approximate" amount of 3,813.0481925 carried out to the 7th decimal place. Seems rather specific doesn't it?

The bitcoins come various seizures:

1. United States v. Approximately 85.6971800 Bitcoins (Dakota Hower), District of Idaho (Case No. 17-00288)
2. United States v. Aaron Michael Shamo, et al, District of Utah (Case No. 16-00631)
3. United States v. Daniel Robert Summerfield, Eastern District of California (Case No. 17-00135)
4. United States v. Alexander Konstantinovich Tverdokhlebov, Eastern District of Virginia (Case No. 17-00009)
5. FBI Administrative Forfeiture of Various Bitcoin from Drew Callahan
6. USPIS Administrative Forfeiture of 64.99255187 Bitcoins from wallet XXXXfVLXA
7. USPIS Administrative Forfeiture of 5.80090739 Bitcoins from wallet XXXXJngi4
8. USPIS Administrative Forfeiture of 11.6279 Bitcoins from wallet XXXXJPWT7
9. USPIS Administrative Forfeiture of 53.05495044 Bitcoins from wallet XXXX4z96W
10. Department of Homeland Security, United States Customs and Border Protection, Case Numbers; 2016330700028201, 20161603000009401, 201110100007601, 2017390100065401, 2017110100022201, 2017390100068001, 2017390100065401, 2017390100014601

To bid, those interested must register by noon on January 19th and lay out a $200,000 refundable deposit per block to bid and breakdown into 2 series and 11 blocks.

Series	Bitcoins	Blocks	Total	Deposit
A	500	5	2500	$200,000
B	100	5	500	$200,000
C	813.0481935	1	813.0481935	$200,000
Total	3,813.0481935

Winners of the auction blocks have 24 hours to wire funds via Fedwire (meaning you have less than 24 hours) to the US Marshalls office.

Which leads to one question. Is the US Marshall's Office planning to use escrow?

Seems only fair. They want a $200k deposit, so do they expect everyone to just trust them for 2 days with $200k?  After all, allot of these bitcoins do come from civil forfeiture.

I vote for the US Marshall's office using Localbitcoins.com for escrow before deposits and payments are made.

I would actually pay money to see that.

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