Bloomberg reports that an auction held today by the USMS1 for 50,000 BTC attracted a total of 34 bids from 14 participants including third time bidders SecondMarket. The fenced goods are expected to be transferred to the winner/s of the auction by Monday at the earliest.
Alluding to Buterin's Waterfall, Gil Luria of Wedbush Securities Inc was quoted by Bloomberg as saying:
"The steady stream of supply provided by the U.S. Marshals auctions is likely causing some pressure on bitcoin prices because they are coming on top of the existing supply from miners, once all the auctions are complete I would expect that overhang to lead to some price increases.
USMS spokesman Lynzey Donahue confirmed that the government has a remaining 44,341 BTC to sell at an as yet to be determined time and date. Speaking to Bloomberg, Donahue said:
"We anticipate selling them in the coming months. No exact dates have been determined."
Once future auctions for what remains of the 144,000 bitcoins confiscated from Ross Ulbricht's computer are complete, there is nothing that would preclude the USMS and other USG departments from holding additional auctions for non-existent coins in order to further suppress the price of bitcoin. It remains to be seen how effective such stalling tactics will remain.
Mirrored here as the USMS have deleted the pages for previous auctions. ↩
lol! "there is nothing that would preclude the USMS and other USG departments from holding additional auctions for non-existent coins in order to further suppress the price of bitcoin."
In this case, would the winning bidders be silenced by Ulbricht's hitmen?
USMS reserves the right to select winning bidders based on whatever criteria they wish. And, with the bids submitted in secret, there is nothing to keep a USG shill from winning. Which is quite possibly what happened the last time around.
"there is nothing that would preclude the USMS and other USG departments from holding additional auctions for non-existent coins in order to further suppress the price of bitcoin"
You mean, with fake bidders? I don't see that working.
Why would the US government want to depress the price of bitcoin? That would hurt investors, and maybe some venture capitalists, but not drug users or other people who use bitcoin for payments. It would also hurt non-Chinese miners more than the Chinese ones.
So, I see very little motivation for a manoeuver (simulating an USMS auction) that would be quite embarassing if it was discovered.
If the US government did want to depress the price, they could do it much more easily and effectively by rejecting the COIN application, for example. It seems that many traders and investors are holding fast through these desperate times only because they hope that COIN will be approved and that it will generate a huge demand for bitcoins.
COIN hardly needs rejecting by the USG, it's not in the WoT so it really doesn't meaningfully exist. I wouldn't worry too much about it if I were you.
As to the USG suppressing the price of Bitcoin, not only is it in their interest to downplay the existence, much less the success, of non-fiat threats (eg. gold, Bitcoin), but there's plenty of evidence to suggest that they're diddling the market, just as they do the gold market and the DJIA. It's a command economy, that's sort of their thing.
Of course, Bitcoin cannot be stopped, merely delayed, and delayed only to the detriment of those who get in its way.
TechCrunch today reports that yesteday's auction was the last of DPR's coins.. yet Bloomberg quoted a USMS rep as saying there is still more to come.. and you wonder why people suspect it's all bullshit?
https://archive.today/kzdoD
Lol wait, you "dont'see that working" ? Who are you in the first place to see or not see things ?
The difference between USMS and Inaba is that random muppet "Stolfi" is defending Inaba, whereas random muppet "Gigavps" is defending USMS. Or vice-versa, for all the difference it makes. Otherwise, USG "Bitcoin auctions" are about as legit as BFL "Bitcoin Miners".