The United States Confiscates Thousands of Bitcoin as Bitcoin Prices Surge

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed yesterday, 11th of June, that the US is prosecuting for the confiscation of thousands of Bitcoins valued above $1 billion.

The DOJ noted that the huge Tuesday seizure is correlated to the early darknet market Silk Road, and stands as the biggest seizure so far.

Filed processes show that the amount seized is more than 69,370 bitcoin and almost the same amount of bitcoin satoshi vision (BSV), forked cryptos bitcoin cash (BCH), and bitcoin gold (BTG).

From the processes, the State maintains that an anonymous hacker converted the cryptos from Silk Road and transferred them to a digital wallet from April 2013,  till it was confiscated this year. The holder yielded to the Government’s confiscation of the Cryptos.

Tom Robinson, Elliptic Co-founder, makes a conjecture that it is possible that the tokens were transferred by now jailed Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht or another Silk Road vendor.

Some Bitcoin merchants may argue that this recent confiscation influenced the current surge in bitcoin prices, but since the tokens have been hibernated in the digital wallet for some years and have been inaccessible for trading, it is very unlikely that the seizure influenced the surge in the prices of bitcoin. If the United States government takes to auctioning the tokens, the tokens could return to the circulating supply.