Civil forfiture doesn't require a criminal conviction. In fact there's hardly any process at all. Just one more twisted doctrine justified by the War on Drugs.
In this case, there was no one to fight on behalf of the Silk Road or its funds because Ross Ulbricht says he isn't Dread Pirate Roberts and doesn't represent the site (though he is fighting to keep the 144,000 BTC found on his computer -- those haven't been forfeited yet).
The real losers here are the Silk Road users who just forfeited whatever they had sitting in the site's coffers. Even if someone made the unwise decision to come forward and say, 'I used the site legally and that's my money,' the feds could still say it was a site devoted mainly to illegal activity and so that argument is moot.
Based on the current price it makes roughly 25K bitcoins, and using the current BUY backlog on MtGox, selling them would push the price back to $550. However such a volume will certainly create a panic wave and it could go below that.
If they are clever, they won't put everything on the market like this.
Probably. To understand price changes it's important to consider how they change.
Price movements occur as a result of a buyer or seller aggressing into a market and submitting an order such that the parameters of the aggressor's order match the opposite sides unfilled orders. This process is typically referred to as order matching. If a buyer aggresses into the market and matches against unfilled sell orders the price increases because they have removed the lowest prices from the order book. If a seller does something similar the price will drop because the highest prices have been removed.
Another reason price movements occur is because people are also reacting to the market and trying to predict where the market is going. As a consequence they will either enter the market at an off market price attempting to predict it, or cancel their outstanding orders and re-price them. But this is another topic entirely and I will leave it out as it's pretty complex and my understanding of that topic is newb level at best.
The second thing to consider is the why. Why do price movements occur? Mainly because people are consuming information and trying to predict where the market is going. For other assets such as FX & commodities there are non-speculative market participants who buy and sell based on their business need. An example from Foreign Exchange is a company such as Google having a stockpile of dollars and needing to pay employees in euros. The end result of these non-speculative market participants is greater price stability because they are always buying or always selling, not because they want to, but because they have to. But since bitcoin is largely a speculative currency (the majority of bitcoin trading volume is the result of speculation, not legitimate commerce) the news has a disproportionate effect on it's prices.
My 2 cents say that this will temporarily depress prices but they will quickly recover because someone such as myself recognizes that those bitcoins haven't entered the market, so nothing has really changed.
Actually it might be interesting. Technically yes if they sold at any price they'd burn through the orderbook and the price would crash.
But if they set a flat sell price then that'd make a buy (edit: sell) wall (price can not go above this amount until all 25 million have been purchased).
I honestly don't think the Bitcoin market is sophisticated enough to react to events like this. Certainly, if the feds really want to sell and someone puts $0.01 on the order books for that size of a trade, and nobody else is around, it could be filled, but I don't see that happening.
The article speculates these Bitcoin will be auctioned off. I wonder if that would be the entire wallet as one lot. Not too many people have the resources and willingness to throw $25 million into Bitcoin outside of the Winklevoss twins and hedge funds. Odds are they might get a good discount, but that might be preferable to the Bitcoin economy than the government selling the coins in smaller lots. 30k coins suddenly flooding the market at once would cause a pretty dramatic drop in price.
It's not clear to me whether this drives the price up or down. Sure, naively, it's more supply therefore lower prices. However, it does lend an air of legitimacy to Bitcoin and will likely raise awareness as it gets played out on mainstream media.
In other words, it will likely affect both the supply of and demand for Bitcoin.
Well the government considers bitcoin to be a commodity and not a currency. So they're selling the commodity they seized, no different than selling a fleet of ferraris and armani suits seized in another drug raid.
I somewhat would think they'd actually want to maintain ownership - but create the illusion they no longer do, so then they can make transactions. It'd be smart to track how those Bitcoin move and all accounts it touches.
> approximately $25 million worth of Bitcoin will be auctioned off soon
At least they won't sell it via usual exchanges in one go. That would make quite a mess... (bringing price down to ~0 for a while before everything rebalances)
It is not possible to short anything directly. Only direct actions are to buy and sell.
Options are derivative products that other people offer. They looks at statistical volatility and price their options, such that they make some $ on average. This means you can short bitcoin, just like anything else - you need to find someone offering the service.
No. Someone has to take the other side of that trade. Typically, a brokerage will loan you shares to sell short, and then you buy them back to pay back the loan. If nobody will loan you bitcoins, you can't sell them short.
[+] [-] justincormack|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradleyjg|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nonprofiteer|12 years ago|reply
The real losers here are the Silk Road users who just forfeited whatever they had sitting in the site's coffers. Even if someone made the unwise decision to come forward and say, 'I used the site legally and that's my money,' the feds could still say it was a site devoted mainly to illegal activity and so that argument is moot.
[+] [-] sebastienros|12 years ago|reply
If they are clever, they won't put everything on the market like this.
[+] [-] icey|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dclusin|12 years ago|reply
Price movements occur as a result of a buyer or seller aggressing into a market and submitting an order such that the parameters of the aggressor's order match the opposite sides unfilled orders. This process is typically referred to as order matching. If a buyer aggresses into the market and matches against unfilled sell orders the price increases because they have removed the lowest prices from the order book. If a seller does something similar the price will drop because the highest prices have been removed.
Another reason price movements occur is because people are also reacting to the market and trying to predict where the market is going. As a consequence they will either enter the market at an off market price attempting to predict it, or cancel their outstanding orders and re-price them. But this is another topic entirely and I will leave it out as it's pretty complex and my understanding of that topic is newb level at best.
The second thing to consider is the why. Why do price movements occur? Mainly because people are consuming information and trying to predict where the market is going. For other assets such as FX & commodities there are non-speculative market participants who buy and sell based on their business need. An example from Foreign Exchange is a company such as Google having a stockpile of dollars and needing to pay employees in euros. The end result of these non-speculative market participants is greater price stability because they are always buying or always selling, not because they want to, but because they have to. But since bitcoin is largely a speculative currency (the majority of bitcoin trading volume is the result of speculation, not legitimate commerce) the news has a disproportionate effect on it's prices.
My 2 cents say that this will temporarily depress prices but they will quickly recover because someone such as myself recognizes that those bitcoins haven't entered the market, so nothing has really changed.
[+] [-] asperous|12 years ago|reply
But if they set a flat sell price then that'd make a buy (edit: sell) wall (price can not go above this amount until all 25 million have been purchased).
The sell wall could help stabilize the price.
[+] [-] jrockway|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostromo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slg|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dclusin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] losvedir|12 years ago|reply
In other words, it will likely affect both the supply of and demand for Bitcoin.
[+] [-] true_religion|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loceng|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bequanna|12 years ago|reply
It is already pretty transparent: http://blockchain.info/
[+] [-] viraptor|12 years ago|reply
At least they won't sell it via usual exchanges in one go. That would make quite a mess... (bringing price down to ~0 for a while before everything rebalances)
[+] [-] alexcroox|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] watcherfeds|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ksrm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LanceH|12 years ago|reply
The feds selling the bitcoin would be an endorsement of it and the market they used to sell as being legal. This could push the price up.
[+] [-] Alex3917|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yelnatz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philip1209|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TrainedMonkey|12 years ago|reply
Options are derivative products that other people offer. They looks at statistical volatility and price their options, such that they make some $ on average. This means you can short bitcoin, just like anything else - you need to find someone offering the service.
[+] [-] jrockway|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matthewsimon|12 years ago|reply
[0] http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/05/betting-against-bi...
[+] [-] lowglow|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandieman|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samstave|12 years ago|reply
I wouldn't doubt they are trying to use their network to get hold of these...
[+] [-] samstave|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tg3|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] standeven|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomphoolery|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eudox|12 years ago|reply
Don't let them get away with it, folks.
[+] [-] allannienhuis|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GigabyteCoin|12 years ago|reply