U.S. Marshals Will Auction Bitcoins Valued at About $54 Million

• January 11 2018
• Olga Kharif

The U.S. Marshals Service will auction off 3,813 bitcoins seized in connection with federal, civic and administrative cases. The coins are worth almost $54 million at current prices.

The U.S. Marshals Service will auction off 3,813 bitcoins seized in connection with federal, civic and administrative cases. The coins are worth almost $54 million at current prices.

The auction by the Department of Justice agency will take place during a six-hour period on Jan. 22. The bitcoins will be offered for sale in 11 blocks, the largest of which will contain 813 bitcoins. Participants are required to make a deposit of $200,000, the agency said in a statement Thursday.

The auction represents a rare opportunity for investors to purchase a large amount of bitcoin without dramatically affecting prices on online exchanges. But it’s smaller than some prior auctions the federal agency has held: Back in 2014, venture capitalist Tim Draper was the sole winner of about 30,000 bitcoins auctioned. SecondMarket, now part of Nasdaq, won a large swath of bitcoin in a previous auction as well.

Bitcoin fell 4.2 percent to $13,890 as of 10:53 a.m. in New York, according to prices on Bloomberg. The world’s largest cryptocurrency surged 1,400 percent last year.