Bitcoin exchange itBit among winners in US Marshals auction

Bitcoin exchange itBit announced Tuesday it had won part of the US Marshals Service’s third auction of Bitcoins seized from Ross Ulbricht, who was recently convicted of operating the online black market Silk Road, reported Reuters.

itBit said it won 3,000 of the 50,000 Bitcoins up for sale last Thursday by the US Marshals Service. Reuters reported that the Marshals Service said earlier on Tuesday there are two other unidentified winners in the latest auction, who won 27,000 Bitcoins and 20,000 Bitcoins, respectively.

Reuters reported that in late trading Tuesday, Bitcoin was up 1.8 percent at $292.19, putting the value of the 50,000 Bitcoins auctioned last week at $14.6 million. With offices in New York and Singapore, itBit was founded in 2012 as an international exchange of institutional and retail investors.

Last Thursday’s auction drew 34 bids from 14 registered bidders, more than the previous auction in December, when just 11 bidders submitted 27 bids. The US Marshals’ first auction, held last June, attracted 45 bidders and 63 bids.

The US government has reportedly recovered nearly 174,000 Bitcoins from Silk Road, meaning it still has a fairly significant amount of Bitcoin left to auction off. Lynzey Donahue, a spokesperson for the US Marshals Service, recently told the New York Times that the Marshals Service anticipates selling the remaining Bitcoins “in the coming months,” but that “no exact dates have been determined.”

Image via itBit’s press kit